


GO WILD

by Audley



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: 8th PT member, Canon Compliant, Crime with a training montage, East Gorteau, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Organized Crime, Pre-Canon, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Smut Eventually, before Shizuku
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2018-12-21 04:28:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 91,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11936322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Audley/pseuds/Audley
Summary: Long before the country was ravaged by the Chimera Ants, Safra defected from East Gorteau and ended up in Meteor City. Long before Shizuku joined, Safra was the 8th spider.Chrollo wants to go on a heist to steal from East Gorteau. But her nen needs serious training and they need a few more members.Meanwhile, danger lurks in East Gorteau. Soon plans start to go awry. With the Phantom Troupe, Safra doesn't have a ghost of a chance.





	1. Lawless x Junk x Jungle

On the last day of life as I knew it, somebody had mishandled the TNT.

On the first day of my life, my name, Safra Jung, was gifted to me via a tag on my foot. At the military prison camp, without a foot to tag, I was pronounced dead as inmate #10917.

This isn't a twist. I'm clearly not dead. Not a ghost haunting the living world or some other kind of fluid phantom. There was an accident at the military camp. I survived and fled the country without telling my brother and sister. They think I'm dead but I am alive, far away in Meteor City.

What I've told you no one else knows.

But as you should know, this is just the beginning.

* * *

Beige billows below my eyes. I center my scarf at my nose and mask my face from the smell. The slight air filter saves my swaying stomach from capsizing. Somehow, the stench of garbage is worse today. Think moldy vegetables, rusty iron, and a dead skunk toasting under the sun for weeks.

Meteor City should have been named Fetor City.

Locals can meander easily on trash air without any cover. I'm not one of them. Even with the scarf, after two hours of working in the dunes, I wheeze like a chain smoker with black lungs. While searching the dunes, my cover kept slipping, and accidental whiffs burned my nasal passages, coating my tongue with the taste of pure garbage funk. I've been here for several weeks and every morning the repugnant smell punches me right in the face.

The smell of Meteor City never lets you forget you're in Meteor City.

Frustrated, overheated, and hungry, I want to go home and hide in the shade like some nocturnal creature. I have one job to finish and it should be easy. But my scarf isn't cooperating and the landmine I'm looking for doesn't want to be found.

Heat crawls up my neck like a spider. I'm wearing thick gloves, two layers on my head and my hair is tied to the nape of my neck, the scratch from my fingers barely reaches the itch.

Someone must have lassoed the sun and dragged it closer to Meteor City. The desert winds blow but bring no relief. The scorch makes everything worse, the rank smell, the orange smog, the temperaments of the sorry people living here, including me.

This bothers me more than it should but I'm  _not_  a wimp to high temps. I'm a child of the humid jungle. I only know two seasons: hot and monsoon. Strength against the heat is built into my DNA, with the curves of my shoulders and my pigeon toes. And I still can't crack the heat of Meteor City.

I fared better in a country that has been described by journalists as the  _Divine spark that lit the fiery gates of Hell_. Ya hear that Meteor City? You're worse than Hell.

_Arr! Arr!_

I kneel and lean my right ear near the sand. I have to focus to hear over the crows and their constant caw.

_Arr! Arr!_

A pair of birds perch on scrap plastic at my eye level. Gorgeous green iridescence in their black feathers is made ugly by the fact that they won't shut up. They always spy from a safe spot, thinking I'm scavenging for midden they can swipe. Sorry birds, you can't eat what I'm about to dig up.

It's faint but I hear it. The low whistle of a mine, like a missile breaking the sky. The ring leads me straight on. I shuffle to the other mound and the ring grows louder, telling me I'm getting warmer.

The crows follow, clearly with piqued interest.

I press my ear against the tiny grains again. _Phwww...phwww._

A car antenna sits conveniently within arm's reach, waiting to be put to good use. I poke it into the sand. Where are you, you son-of-a- _CLING!_

I double-check.  _Cling...cling._

Heat crawls up my neck again as adrenaline thunders in my veins. I pour handfuls of sand aside, the winds whip fine grains into smoke that muddles my sight. By the fifth handful, green plastic peeks through.

There you are. I've been looking all day for you.

Soon, I have a mini crater and a green circle of plastic with a black rubber X facing me.

Do  _not_  touch the pressure plate. Press any part of the rubbery X, it explodes. Upset the springs inside, it explodes. Hit the fuse by accident, it explodes. Yank it out of the ground without checking for trip-wire, it explodes. If it's been tampered with, frown or glare at it or breathe in front of it the wrong way, it explodes.

Mishandling is the #1 reason for 'accidental death' when working with high explosives. I have witnessed so many of my fellow comrades die because a mine slipped from their fidgety hands and hit face first on the pressure plate.

My gloves had fused with my sweaty skin and I have to peel them off like onion skins. I prefer naked hands for this.

" _Wallahae,_ " I pray in my native tongue. I've done this a thousand times and I still need to whisper a prayer before I fully uncover the unexploded land mine.

I grace my soft bare fingers along the circle of gritty plastic. No dents from dropping or burying. The rubber X on the  _pressure_  plate is perfectly raised. No hooks for trip-wire. The green plastic casing is slightly browned from weathering, even slightly warped in shape from heat, but it hasn't been tampered with. It's in a safe state to handle, as long as I'm not reckless.

I take it out of the ground easily. Perhaps the only perk about these sand dunes: sand doesn't grab and hug the mine like soil.

The size of an ashtray, a little bigger than my palm. I always underestimate how light these things are. Something this deadly shouldn't be lighter than a glass mug. The landmine is so light a crow could thieve it and carry it to a nest. Something so small yet could obliterate the whole leg of an elephant. Obliterate an entire person, reducing the person you were just laughing with to  _ash._

Unlike a lot of the live weapons junked in meteor city that would wither with old age, if left in the ground for one hundred more years, this mine would still explode. Long after the humans who built it died, it would still be a live mine.

Landmines are like guns. There is a safety trigger you can use.

I carry a square tool in my back pocket. I begin to unscrew a compartment on the underside. Again, I have done this a thousand times and still each hard  _creak_ of the screw jolts my heart. I have to hold the mine tightly in one hand and turn with force before the screw gives. The cap falls off and bright yellow TNT peeks through the green plastic.

_Arr!_

The next compartment I open is the fuse, the safety plug. Pop it out and I can carry the mine into town to sell.

My palm touches the pressure plate but my grip is all in my fingers, holding the mine as I turn the screw. The cap falls and tucked inside is the fuse, chrome and round like a silver coin. I turn the mine over so the fuse can fall out. Ready to go home. Time to call it a day.

I give it a shake. Then another harder shake. The fuse doesn't wiggle even the tiniest bit.

Frustration itches my neck, the gross sensation of lice. Why isn't it just falling out? Is it glued in?

I hit the plastic casing with my tool but it won't dislodge from the pocket.

I hold the mine over my right eye, angling it get enough light and maneuvering to get a good view. Please don't be glued in-

The gust of trash fumes hits me with vengeance and sand stings my eyes. I can't see. I hack up a lung, coughing my throat raw and I still can't clear my airway.

_Arr! Arr!_

I duck but a crow's foot snags my scarf. A thread caught on a claw pulls and snaps and distressed flutter of wings into the distance. I shriek and wave my arms madly and blindly to shoo away the crows.

One fumble and the landmine slips from my grasp. Through watery, distended lids, I watch it in slow motion in the air, how it falls face first. A foot from my foot.

The soft  _boing_  of an internal spring disturbed from impact. Three seconds. Landmine, if you're going to explode, I give you three seconds. A brush of wind intrudes on the silence, not even the crows cawed.

Asshole puckered, gut sucked in, I don't even breathe. On a frying day in broad daylight, covered in layers from head to toe, a cold shiver ripples down my spine.

Nothing. The mine does nothing. The X on the plate, even checking from an angle, is still raised.

I inhale, gagging for it. Even Meteor City air smells better than death.

I pick up the mine avoiding the rubber X on the pressure plate. Now, clear as day, I spot the black rubber band holding the fuse. My torn scarf, the  _boing_  of the spring, those blasted crows over a  _fucking_ piece of black rubber. I scratch my neck and hair and sigh. At least it's not glued inside. I use my tool to tear it out. I club the plastic casing until finally, the round fuse plops out and almost disappears in the sand.

Last thing I do is put my gloves back on.

* * *

I  _really_  don't like Meteor City. And I'm pretty sure, Meteor City doesn't like me either.

The city of fallen stars isn't a city at all. It's a trash dump. A trash dump on a bone-dry river bed. I sleep in one of the many soulless concrete towers on the edge of town.

As much as I complain, the heat and smell, I'm afraid, are the easy part.

Living in Meteor City is dangerous. Another thing I wasn't told before I came here. Found out the very hard way. I should clarify though, it's less dangerous if you have some back-up. Find some people who need your skills more than they want to kill you and you're good.

Lucky me, I found some reinforcements on my first day in town. Before I found help, someone nearly cracked my ribs and I broke someone's nose. (I said I found out the hard way remember?) They deserved it. They nearly smashed my hand into a bloody pulp after snatching my bag of rice.

I had traded the dewy green jungle for a lawless junk jungle.

I wasn't expecting this when I defected from East Gorteau. Yes, that Gorteau. Not the free West Gorteau but the Republic of East Gorteau that is ruled by a despot. Which brings me to my next thought.

I have a purpose for being in Meteor City. I don't have to stick around forever, but I'll be stuck here for a while. For the first time ever, no one could order me to do anything. I had been told to come to Meteor City, but more as a recommendation. Defect and go there and be a nobody, they said. Fitting, because in East Gorteau, I hadn't ever learned about a place called Meteor City in school or in life. It makes me feel like I'm far from East Gorteau, not even on the same planet. I am a nobody here in Meteor City and that is a profoundly freeing thing.

This is a stark opposite existence than what I used to live in East Gorteau. The country had endured a civil war, a revolution, split from the Western half of the country and threw out the aristocrats. Then it all went to shit. A million people were purged in the arduous cleansing of the country. Which gave birth to anxiety and paranoia among comrades.

Everything is controlled. What isn't controlled by the state you control yourself for fear of whistleblowers among friends and family. In East Gorteau, all citizens are *equal. But don't let that fool you. We would recite that every morning as part of the pledge. All citizens are equal, we'd chant while knowing our names, future jobs, and marriages all pertained to our social standing long etched in the sand before our births. There is definitely a social class in East Gorteau and if I were cut from a better thread I wouldn't have been thrown into the military camp. Tainted lineage was their justification and I was sent away. Without a trial and without any way of contacting my siblings. In the middle of one random night, I disappeared like many Gortese do. My brother and sister aren't dumb. They surely know I was sent to a military internment camp.

We assembled high explosives in my division at the camp. As you can imagine, it's very dangerous work, accidents are bound to happen. An accident  _did_ happen. Through no fault of their own, my entire division was killed. Burnt to dust and ash in an uncaring instant. It was only by dumb luck that I wasn't there when it happened. By proxy and the false assumption of my being there, the camp officers think I'm dead. Because they weren't looking for me, I broke out of military prison and defected from East Gorteau.

Being an East Gortese in Meteor City means I committed the worst imaginable crime. I'm a traitor of the worst kind. Worse than the commanders who let us starve. Worse than the egomaniac who murdered a million of his own people. Even thinking that about the Supreme Leader in the privacy of my own head is a crime.

I don't like to call myself a defector because that credits me with too much political motivation. Journalists and West Gorteau LOVE those kinds of defectors. Makes for a great news story: poor defector just yearning for freedom. I didn't leave to make a political statement or to betray my home. East Gorteau will always be my home, but I can't return.

I suppose I could have gone anywhere but Meteor City is the only place I know of that doesn't demand papers or an ID card to exist. Which leads me to one of the few things I actually like about Meteor City: here, I can stay dead for as long as I want.

Back to my purpose, I am here to uncover unexploded remnants of war, AKA, landmines. I only have a second-hand version of the events, but some group or someone had dumped thousands of landmines in the garbage fields and around Meteor City.

The Council of Meteor City had allegedly tried and  _failed_ miserably to address the dangerous situation. They tried metal detectors to find  _plastic_ mines. They tried hound dogs to sniff them out. The dogs were too heavy and accidentally triggered the mines they were sniffing. They even used martyrs... Fools. I am the only person in a hundred-kilometer vicinity who can go near the mines and still have all my limbs perfectly intact. I do the Council's job better than the Council, but I do not work for them. I work for my self. I find the mines and sell them to a dealer for a wad of Jenny.

Amazing. A prisoner treated as the dregs of society became immensely valuable in a land run by a council too inept to handle their shit. That fills me with an arrogance that I'm not familiar with. The Council is the governing body of Meteor City and for the first time, I don't worry about government or answer to any government.

I will never answer to anyone in Meteor City.

I am Safra Jung. I'm supposed to be dead and I live in Meteor City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Phantom Troupe is going to make their introduction in the next chapter...and it won't be pretty.
> 
> This is set pre-canon and is about the elusive 8th member before Shizuku joined. To jog memories, East Gorteau is the allegory for North Korea in the manga. The OC is Gortese. I studied political science and know a lot about failed states and despots so I'll try to channel that into Safra and her upbringing.
> 
> There are already some great OC involved with PT fics and 8th member fics, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. I haven't found any East Gorteau fics and when I watched the ant arc, I thought about defectors and the idea sprang from there. Double posting this on ffnet and here though any explicit scenes will be posted here. Pairings will be slow burn and you'll find out who I'm pairing her with soon. I'm a sucker for Canon CharactersxOC fics though the plot listed as crime. Crime and pairings... We'll see how this goes. Thank you for reading!


	2. Phinks x Feitan x Hemingway

 

I enter the dealer's basement under the bustling markets with my sack in tow. Despite my wishes to strip off a few layers, I only wiggle my scarf for air. My beige scarf has become brown from the beating sand gusts.

The room had once been a stark white but is now streaked with gray scuff marks on the walls and tiles. A high-speed fan whirls above me. I sidestep to be in the perfect angle of the cool draft. I knock on the back door and a voice calls, "Just a sec."

The flush of a toilet bowl. I set my bag on a wooden table and the door hinges creak as the door opens.

"It was hot as Hades today, let me tell you. My balls are drowning in sweat," says the dealer I know as Fazier, a man of no standard greetings.

Fazier, my connection in Meteor City, raised a bushy black brow at my sack with only one landmine despite my normal number being ten per day. The table would wobble and squeak under the weight of my daily haul and Fazier noticed the sound's absence. Normally I'd rip my scarf off, but I wasn't in the best of moods and taking off the scarf would make me more open to his chatter. Fazier is a sociable guy, mostly loved hearing himself speak but again, today, I ain't in the best of moods.

He makes a show of searching my large sack for the other mines, like a child expecting more presents lurking in the bag. His lips twitch up but before he cracks a full pearly white smile to show humor, he catches himself. Fazier has all his teeth. Dental care is spotty in Meteor City and I found you can tell who is a transplant by their number of teeth.

Fazier is a burly man and though he isn't ripped like a weight-lifter, he has the solid physique and permanent muscle mass of someone who ate full meals every day in childhood and had exercised frequently for power in his youth. I have all my teeth too, but I didn't always eat full meals growing up in East Gorteau.

His eyes, the color of wood-knots, circle around my clothed face, trying to read my expression. The only skin of mine he can see is my nose bridge, eyelids and a peek of my wrists.

"You've never brought me this few before," he says and extends an open palm for me to give him the fuse. I drop it into his hand without a word. "Had a bad day Nanashi?"

His nickname for me. Nanashi which after some digging in a dictionary, I found out it  _affectionately_  meant the 'nameless-one.' My fault, I suppose, I never told him my real name and wasn't creative enough (nor did I care enough) to come up with a fake one.

I know he is only trying to put me at ease, but I don't respond. Our usual give and take. It's not that I dislike the man, I'm too embarrassed by my jarring way of speaking Japanese.

If you believe the northern perspective of East Gorteau, you'd think we were so isolated we never even heard of other languages. Bullshit.

Foreign languages I had exposure to via cassettes in school were other Balsa Island languages, English, Chinese, and Japanese. I was 'taught' more about linguistics, vocab, syntax, how they differed from Gortese. Japanese was a language to think about and not to ever actually speak fluently. Not exactly a liberal education, but better than what journalists would have you think about the 'country with the WORST schools'. Chinese at least reminds me of Gortese since a lot of Gortese words from straight from Chinese. Japanese is a different, obnoxiously convoluted can of worms, with too many homonyms for my liking, and the less I have to speak it, the better.

Awkward silence between Fazier and I. He leaves the conversation open for me to fill, but I never take him up on it.

"Well, I'm sure you'll have a better day tomorrow," says Fazier. He runs his hands through his pronounced widow's peak and lightly coughs. Coughing, another way to tell the transplants from the locals.

I turn to leave with my sack a little lighter.

"Fisherman and the Mafia have been sighted in Meteor City," says Fazier, stopping me in my tracks. "You know to avoid them, especially with those mines in your possession. Them, even I can't protect you from." For all his cracks, Fazier, as I met him and prefer him, is a serious, suspicious person.

"I helped you against those street thugs, but know there are many people in Meteor City that even I can't protect you from."

* * *

After seeing Frazier, I skim the market to find something to fill my stomach and go home.

I rest and awake to a brand new day. I pause in the door frame, gazing at the sky.

The sky isn't clear today, which is odd. Rolling yellow storm clouds, like the underbelly of a beast, loom above and stretch to the horizon. It is strange. I have been in Meteor City for several weeks and have never seen rain here. Barely a cloud blemishes the sky most days.

A rumble above. I wonder, how would rain sound in Meteor City? Without the rain  _pitter_  and  _patter_  against banana leaves and fan palms? Or the chimes of tropical parakeets, barbets, and other (crows do NOT count) birds? Homesickness waves over me like a gust of sand. The Balsa islands receive more rain than anywhere else on the planet. In East Gorteau, it sprinkles, mists, downpours, rains in some form every single day. I miss the tangential rains and how the fragrance of the lush green jungle would come alive after rainfall. The only green thing I ever see in Meteor City is the green plastic of the mines.

I follow the trail of a double landmine whistle and it leads me to a wide open space between four garbage mounds. Two mines are here and I don't have to dig through any garbage. Rain and easy pickings. Fazier was right. Today is a better day.

I pray " _Wallahae_ ," six times and collect six mines before the afternoon.

Another rumble. The yellow belly is hungry apparently but no rain yet.

Maybe it's a good thing. I've heard desert rains, while rare as unicorns, make up for long drought and drench the scorched earth. Causing floods in many circumstances. Maybe I'll get two more mines and call it a day to watch the rain. Eight landmines is a perfectly respectable haul. Not like I have competition nor do landmines expire.

I bend into the sand, arms up posing like a musical conductor, about to dig when a strange sound makes me freeze.

The mirth of children rings like bells in the area.

There are giant red, scary looking signs posted, painted with skull bones: WARNING! LANDMINES! before you enter the field. Maybe they ignored the signs or don't sense the real danger. That's the thing about children—they don't give a shit. Frying summer temperatures, a storm coming, toxic smoke from the garbage pits in a field riddled with land mines, and yet they still played. I am a foreigner in their midst. Wearing a thick scarf around my face, I can barely breathe while they're laughing.

Children do not give a shit. I know that because I used to be a child and did not give a shit. It wasn't so long ago that I climbed rickety building structures with my older sister, Amari. We were inseparable back then. We'd dare each other to stuff our cheeks with poison berries, we'd pet the squishy tendrils of jellyfish that washed near shore, climb to the roofs of shaky unfinished housing that would topple with one strong gust of air—looking back, we were dumb,  _dumb_  kids. We were just playing, but we thought we were invincible. At the time I could not understand why my mother scolded us, slapped our hands, and worried so much when she caught us doing something stupid. Me and Amari were such little terrors to our mother, may her spirit rest in peace.

Another thing about children, they migrate and rarely stay in one spot for long. I sit and though I don't normally eat before or during work, I take out the thing that had made me excited at the market after meeting with Fazier.

Wrapped in tin foil, a thin square of high-quality milk chocolate. I never thought I could find real chocolate in Meteor City and in East Gorteau, I cannot for the life of me remember the last time I ate chocolate. I remember a rich fudge pudding my mother made for my sister's sixth birthday, but after that, I can't remember specifically eating it.

A few occasions I was able to get some real chocolate for Huan, my younger brother. I had to practically sell my soul to get some during the famine, but it was one of the few times I felt adequate as a big sister, providing for him.

I scoop up the foil to my nose to only smell the heavenly aroma of cocoa.

In the heat in my pocket, it is in the medium state of gooey and firm. It simply melts with pressure between my lips. It's so soft I don't even need to chew. The chocolate coats the roof of my mouth and tongue like a ganache. It spreads to every corner of my mouth sliding down my throat. I lick my lips and sigh in a rare moment of bliss.

I'm a little thirsty from the sweet aftertaste, but not in an unpleasant way.

My stomach rumbles too now like the sky, wanting more chocolate and food. I look down at the chocolate, precisely half eaten. I crumble up the foil and toss it into the garbage mound. The crows will surely get to it, but at least I don't have to watch them devour it.

The children and their laughter rove towards the mouth of the fields (I hope they're bored and decided to partake in something less dangerous) and I start again. I collect my seventh mine and add my seventh fuse into the stash in my pocket. They jingle like large coins in my pocket.

The sky rumbles again, but the desert air is as dry as ever. Only the color of the cloud cover had changed, to yellow, like that of the TNT in the pocket I opened on the underside of the mine.

200 grams of yellow crystal grains packed tightly together.

Few people know anything about Trinitrotoluene or TNT (the explosive kind and no, it's not the same thing as dynamite). This is already too much for a layman, but think of it this way: if you see white powder, it's dynamite. If you see glittery grains of yellow crystal, it's TNT. Historically, it was used a dye but then people realized it's tremulous nature and potential for high explosives.

Yellow is supposed to be the color of the sun, daffodils, baby chicks, my father's hair and a canary's plume. The hue of happiness, the feeling of being  _sunny._ Not this. Not bombs. This yellow, TNT yellow is jaundiced eyes, poison dart frogs from the jungle, and strong tropical storm clouds, a sign of cyclones ready to break land.

Jungle folklore said green and yellow skies meant super-cell thunderstorms, hail, and cyclones. Another rumble, the hungry belly of a dragon, stretching south. I picture a funnel touching down, debris dancing in the dust. Is a cyclone coming to Meteor City? I ask myself that, stricken with a quiet sense of foreboding.

_Arr! Arr!_

I move on, thinking I can do one more before the inevitable storm. I push garbage aside, the whistle louder. So close, the sound of someone whistling in my ear, I stumble across a cement block the size of a single bed. Probably a chunk from an old apartment block. Where ever it came from, it's sitting on my landmine. I try with one hand, thinking maybe I can nudge it off… Nada. As hard as trying to 'nudge' a mountain. I grip a corner with two hands and pull with every muscle. I grunt, feeling the weight in every muscle fiber, ligaments and tendons fighting until I hit my natural limit. The cement block wins and doesn't shift.

Aches in my back, my arms, and stiffness in my hands. I want to kick something for my trouble.

Of course, the mine is underneath something I can't lift. And if the pressure plate is pressed against it, one wrong push will detonate the mine. I don't feel all that lucky anymore.

I am cooking under my robes, but the beads of sweat running down my neck aren't entirely from the heat. The cover obscured the sun, but heat is no less relentless, soaked up by the sand.

I open my not-full bag as if I don't already know there are seven mines inside and that the haul didn't magically go up to ten.

My muffler slips and I get a big whiff of Meteor City.

I heave, trying to breathe. Sand sticks to my throat and the stench hugs tight in my chest, refusing to let go no matter how violently I cough. I need to catch my breath. I promise to call it a day and hope for rain, just let me breathe—

A jolt at my wrist, the power of a lightning strike. Something catches me, makes my fingers drop my bag, but my bag doesn't hit the ground, it vanishes—

My arm is yanked behind me, ready to be torn off my shoulder. My knees hit the ground and pain drills up my thighs, into my hips. A cry ricochets between my teeth, but never quite leaves my mouth. Sand muddles my vision, but when the smoke clears, I realize, it isn't what I thought. But I could have never imagined this.

A figure behind me and another in front of me. They are men, but they  _cannot_  be mere men.

Five fingers are closed around my wrist. With beige skin, fingernails and pronounced green veins, the hand looks human enough but the grip itself is absolute and inescapable. Like a jinni's iron cuff of enslavement or the prison cuffs they slapped on me before I was carted to camp.

In his outward appearance, there is nothing to suggest immense strength: a tapered tracksuit, yellow hair sleek back and a lit cigarette in his left hand, high tar judging by the sickening smoke. A large, stocky, but solid physique, like Fazier's, but I know Fazier isn't capable of this. Blondie here, I know with a mere flex could squeeze my hand into juice.

Keen beady amber eyes, framed by hairless, knitted brows, are locked on me, as absolute and inescapable as his vice grip on my wrist. A sharp long face, lines of suspicion deeply etched in along his mouth and forehead. Though the situation warrants his poker frown, his face, I can tell, is one that doesn't easily smile.

Another person, his companion, stands some feet away with my bag in his clutches. It was right next to me. Gone with a blur. I didn't even feel him race by me. Dark hair, silky texture like mine. Downturned eyes and brows gave a slight impression of sleepiness to him, but his face is mostly obscured by a collar. Where a mouth should be is a painted skull head and crossbones similar to the landmines warning sign. There's a slight bluish sheen in his robes, much like the crows of Meteor City. Contrasting with his dark robes is his skin color, as white as those who bathed in skin bleach in West Gorteau. He is much shorter than the one holding me, I might even be taller than him.

I peer around and over my shoulder hesitantly, not wanting to take my attention off them, to see if there are more than two. In my imperfect view, no one else, not even the crows lurk in our midst.

Trapped air tickles my chest, but I dare not cough. I hold it in and wait.

"Heh?" a low croaky voice from Collar. "A normal person would be screaming right now."

"Are you mute?" says Blondie. His voice is deep, raspy, but whereas Collar's is low and muffled, his voice bellows in his chest and expands in the air like the smoke from his cigarette.

"Didn't you hear?" says Collar before I can even think. "I heard a _meep_. But no scream."

Both spoke Japanese, not Gortese.

"Are you deaf?" From Blondie a threat, not a real question. Definitely not Gortese.

Inappropriate relief fills me. These men are not Gortese police or defector catchers. Adrenaline still pumping, I sigh and my body relaxes. Something about that annoys Blondie who digs his index finger against my wrist bone, a split hair from dislocating it.

Expletives, twisted Gortese words fill my mouth like vomit. My jaw waggles trying to repress it all.

"I don't care if you are deaf if you don't answer—"

"No, I understand." My desperate Japanese sounds ten times more accented and jarring.

"We have questions," says Collar.

Blondie takes a long drag on his cigarette. The only reason he is restraining me with one hand is so he can continue smoking.

His puff of smoke carries into the sandy winds. "Where did you get the mines?" He says slowly, clearly. Is he trying to be menacing or was my non-native Japanese speaking that blatant? "Who is telling you to dump them here? Who is supplying them?"

Supplying? They think I'm—

"I found them. I dig them up." If I had blinked at the wrong moment, I would have missed the doubtful narrowing of their eyes.

"How fast do you think she is?" asks Collar, opening my sack.

"Can you outrun a landmine?" Blondie asks Collar.

"I know I can, but you too slow."

Blondie bares his teeth with a  _tsk._

"What can she do if I drop these mines," continues Collar. "Or better yet I rub one against an arm and then a leg."

"How long does it take to bleed to death?" asks Blondie.

"The last one... dragged for thirty minutes," says Collar. "The one right before that? With the shock of losing his limbs, under two minutes."

I don't get what they're saying. Are they talking about victims of the mines or something else? Even if I only get half of what they're uttering, I know they think I'm lying.

"I'm not lying. Look at the mines. They're caked in dirt. They've been buried for at least three months."

Fazier once told me that in all circumstances to stay away from a mob boss named Fisherman and his men. Apparently, the weapons market in Meteor City is far more sophisticated and crowded than its junkyard surroundings suggested.

I nearly chew through my lip before spitting out, "Are you associated with Fisherman?"

I wait for something in their expressions to determine if the answer is yes. Instead, mutual puzzlement. A crinkle in the corners of Collar's already narrowed eyes.

"The Mafia, right?" I know I'm in the compromised position, but I demand an answer.

"She doesn't know," says Collar.

"Doesn't know  _what_?" I bark.

Blondie blows a puff of tobacco in the direction of my face.

I hate the smoke. The high tar hurts my chest more than the garbage and I still long for him to take another drag to buy me more precious seconds.

"You aren't from here," says Collar.

I can't lie. Had I been more careful with my accent, maybe I could have. Now it feels like I have it tattooed on my cheeks. "No, I'm not."

"Who brought you here?" asks Blondie.

"I came alone."

"From where?" asks Blondie.

My wrist bones begin to crack. The urge to writhe but I can't wriggle an inch in his vice. My hand looks like a plum ready to burst.

Something possesses me, something stupid, but I tell the truth. I utter home's name for the first time since I leaped outside its borders. "East Gorteau."

Another second before I realize I said the name in Gortese. I'm like a child crying out for its mother.

"East Gorteau," says Collar, saying the name in Japanese.

"Gorteau? Which one? asks Blondie. "The crazy one?"

"The crazy one," says Collar.

They pause. The answer isn't what they bargained for, I know it.

Blondie nurses not one, but two drags of his cigarette. Judging by their unrelenting gazes at each other, they are close enough to speak without words.

I wish I could read their minds. I'm not the person they're looking for but there are no signs of my being released.

Sweat runs around my brows and burns my eyes, but I could hardly breathe let alone move to flick it away.

"How many are with you?" asks Blondie.

"Just me. I dig them up and then sell them in the market."

Collar takes a tally, shaking the sack like a bag of beans. "Seven in here."

"I've dug up 394 in total—"

Blondie crushes my wrist like tissue paper with a mere tightening of his palm. The shrill note that leaves my throat is a pitch I didn't realize I was capable of.

"Did I ask?"

My squeezed hand is bruised, swelling, and discolored I can't recognize my own hand.

"Speak when you're spoken to," says Collar.

My bones scream for mercy and I can't bear the squeeze anymore. I catch his wrist with my left. I won't break my hand to escape, all I need is to break his. One firm touch is all I need. I might lose a few fingers, but he will lose his whole hand and have a stub for a wrist.

I only have enough time to touch the exposed skin of his wrist. Again, he flexes his grip and I writhe against the pain but fall into submission. Cigarette still in hand, he now holds my shoulder, poking fingers right against the socket.

A childhood memory plays in my head, the twisting of a cooked chicken leg, the tearing of skin and flesh from the whole and the  _pop! o_ f bone from the socket. Is that what they mean by life flashing before your eyes?

"Wanna bet, Fei, if she can still do her job with one arm?" Two fingers press deep against my bones and tobacco smoke snakes around me but I can't turn away from it. "Or maybe you want to go back to your book written by some dead guy. Refresh my memory. What was it called again?"

Collar sets down the bag and maybe it's my sight playing tricks, but I  _swear_  his hand is glowing with  _aura_ , the nails sharpened to a point. Even with his face obscured by the fabric skull, I see the fiendish smile reaching Collar's eyes as he says, "A Farewell to Arms."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, in this fic, Feitan is a Hemingway fan. Safra isn't having the best day but I can't imagine Phinks and Feitan being amiable to someone they believe is a contributor if not the mastermind of their land mine situation in Meter City. I hope their introduction and interaction was written alright and in character. We're going to see more of the troupe soon and I can't wait.
> 
> TNT is yellow crystal, which I didn't know until I did research for this fic. Though the amount of research I did about bombs probably put me on a do-not-fly list, I acknowledge I'm no expert and will probably get things wrong about land mines and other explosives.
> 
> Thank you for the kudos on chapter 1 and thank you for reading!


	3. Blood x Chocolate x Tar

 

"Stop!"

Salvation arrives in the form of Fazier. Light on his feet even with his long robes, he hops one pace at a time, guided by my safe footpath. What could have tipped him off? My ear-piercing scream? That I'm taking longer than usual? The two meet gazes with Fazier and I hear a tremble creep into his usually robust voice. "S-stop! It's not what you think!"

"How do you  _know_  what we think?" says Collar, his clawed hand smoldering at his side.

"Please," begs Fazier, dust flying when he lands where my tracks end. Before he can speak more, he coughs into the scarf blowing around his neck. He hadn't bothered to fix his mask, so I can now assume he ran all the way here from the market. He is brave enough to charge into a minefield, but not brave enough to stand toe to toe with the two men. I look to Blondie and Collar again. Who are these two that even Fazier's voice cracks around them?

"She's not who you're looking for." Fazier's words that should be blaring are muffled in his scarf.

"How do you  _think_  we're looking for someone?" Collar parrots to be patronizing.

Fazier pans to Blondie. His head tilts, sounds at his scarf, waves his hands, motions of words, trying to implore Blondie probably to be the more reasonable one but he says nothing to take off the edge. "Nanashi had nothing to do with the mines. She disarms them and brings them to me in the market. I am Fazier of the weapon's merchants and exporters."

Fazier is not from Meteor City but his name smacks with legitimacy and promise in this dot in the desert. Whereas I preferred to coast in invisibility, he uses his big size to plow through the streets. I hear it whispered with respect in the markets. I don't know the identity of the two men, but I bet they have heard of Fazier.

Lines draw up Blondie's forehead. " _Who_?" he asks and I exhale a defeated huff into the sand. With Blondie's hand still planted on my shoulder, his cigarette is so close to my face, I'm practically smoking it. Grey smoke dances under my nose and in my throat I can taste high tar mingle with the last notes of my lunch of sweet chocolate.

I try to think through the immense pain in my hand. With Fazier to distract them, my odds are better. I don't want to have to use it. I  _had_ touched Blondie's skin, which should be enough, even touching the finest hair on his arm would be enough— Yet I hesitate. I want Fazier to talk them down.

"It doesn't matter who I am. I've been involved with unearthing high explosives in Meteor City for two years. She didn't place the land mines here. She appeared long after the weapons were buried in Meteor City."

"How am I supposed to judge that?" says Blondie. "You would say that to get her off the hook."

"It's the truth," says Fazier.

" _How_ am I supposed to judge that? Your flapping gums? What's stopping me from killing you both right now?"

" _I know how we can get the truth_ ," coos Collar, malice gushing in every word.

"Does she  _sound_ or act like she's been here long?" says Fazier with a steady firmness. "Does she sound like a well-groomed and conditioned member of a group with access to weapons of mass destruction? She's too crude."

Way to throw me under the bus, Fazier. Again, he came from somewhere else and I picture him, tall and dark suited, being the boss of the Mafia-equivalent in his home country. He dealt with high-stakes showdowns like this many times. Amazing how Fazier as a whole was two sides of a coin, one being a wisecracker, the other the  _boss_. Again, this is how I prefer him.

Blondie and Collar's silence reads as an agreement to Fazier's statement. Apparently I  _am_  too crude to be a  _real_ threat. Blondie removes the cigarette-hand from my shoulder to take a puff. Tobacco ash tumbles down my sleeve.

"Do you know where she came from?" asks Blondie, his eyes returning to me.

I already answered that question. What was the point in asking Fazier now? Unless they think I made up being from East Gorteau.

"She didn't ever say and I don't ask," says Fazier, truthfully. The man doesn't even know my real name.

Was that a test? Test of  _what_  though? I thought if I ever lost a hand or foot, it would be because of a land mine. Having a limb ripped off was beyond my wildest imagination. Would he just let me  _go?!_

"You  _are_ vouching for this one?" asks Blondie, making certain Fazier would throw his lot in with mine.

"Our partnership is simple. She finds them. Sells them straight to me and for that, I give her a place to stay."

"How does she find them?" asks Collar.

"I never asked nor do I care."

I feel Blondie and Collar round on me, ready to aim the same question to me—

"Over five hundred," says Fazier, breathless. "The mines appeared six months ago and over five hundred people have been dismembered or died."

Is it my mind splitting into insanity or did Blondie's grip loosen by a hair?

"Why hasn't the council done anything?" asks Blondie. I spot the semblance of a grin, a  _smile._ I call it a grin because of his upturned mouth, but it's cynical, with his bared teeth I'm reminded of a beast that flashes its teeth in warning.

"Their brightest idea was to send martyrs to trigger the blasts, one by one," says Fazier, his tone quite neutral on a topic he had ranted to me passionately on a number of occasions for  _how stupid they were as a Council to waste lives like that._  "They've gone back to the drawing board but haven't offered any other solutions yet."

Blondie hissed like a viper through gritted teeth. His grip loosens by another hair and it's maddening.

"But there's no telling how many are out there," adds Fazier. "There could be hundreds, thousands."

"No word on who is dumping them here?" asks Blondie and I allow myself to feel a shred of hope. But they're taking too long.

Their conversation, each word is painstaking and lasts for an eternity. I remember hospital nurses tying strings around moles, cutting the circulation until the dead skin broke cleanly off. My hand is that mole. Any longer, it's gonna break off—

"Normally weapons would be packed together but some sick son-of-a-bitch scattered them, condemning hundreds of acres," says Fazier. "It's been this way for months."

Is that Fazier trying to say that these two haven't been around Meteor City for a while?

"No witnesses or no one is talking," says Fazier.

Blondie and Collar exchange eye-rapport again and Blondie's mouth upturns again and even I can read its implications. He thinks Fazier is wrong, but wrong in what specific way?

"How long has your associate been digging up mines?" asks Collar.

"Six weeks."

"How long do the martyrs last?" ask Blondie.

What the  _hell_ sort of a question is that?

Fazier chewed over the question but then shook his head. "Minutes."

The steaming aura around Collar's hand dissipates.

Blondie releases me with a toss and life pours back into my fingers.

I cry out at the explosion of pins, pricks, and needles. Ever have your foot fall asleep? That, times a million. Blood courses, through my quenched veins, color returns to my fingernails, muscles gasp for oxygen, bones once again feel securely connected to the rest of my arm. My swollen hand, purple sausages, fidgets with difficulty but the worst is over.

I hope.

From this angle, the spire of the finest structure in Meteor City, the Council's quarters, built like a house of worship, comes into view. The peak of Meteor City, reaching towards the heavens, beckons the two men. Blondie and Collar turn away, stalking out of the fields without an ounce of caution one would expect for crossing a literal minefield. For all the absolute hell they gave me, I'm discarded and they're now just walking away?

Again, something stupid possesses me. I don't have any breath to waste and yet before they disappear, I call after them. "What gave me away?"

Fazier makes a choking gesture with his hands, damning me for opening my pie-hole.

The two men pause in the sand.

"Your coughing," says Blondie with a nudge of his head. If pressed by the urge to look my way, he ignores it. "Anyone who is from here is used to the smell."

No one in this god-forsaken world should be used to the smell.

"And you talk weird," adds Collar. "Pft, I didn't even get to do anything." His whine is the last I hear from them.

Fazier and I let the whoosh of the deserts winds and the caw of the crows envelope us before accepting we survived the exchange. I gaze up at the sky and learn that the promising cover of rain clouds had thinned, all hope for a tangential rainfall dashed.

I labor to my feet with a beleaguered sigh. Fazier sees my plum of a hand for the first time, judging by the nauseated green raising in his tan cheeks.

"I don't know what crack you stepped on, what ladder you strolled under, what black cat you passed, but you are the unluckiest whelp there ever was. Well, since they spared you, you might actually be the luckiest. We still have to decide that later."

I am too busy checking my hand to respond. In my rambunctious childhood with an equally rambunctious sister, I've dealt with my share of injuries. My skeleton has suffered a litany of sprains, breaks, and dislocations. I would take them all again over Blondie's death grip. My fingers bend, albeit awkwardly, at my will. My wrist is killing me but none of the bones are broken. Bruising on my wrist so livid, a shadow of his large hand remained where each of his five fingers had touched my skin.

I remember touching under the cuff of his tracksuit sleeve. A moment longer and Blondie wouldn't just be eyebrow-less.

"Whatever it was, maybe it carried over with you from whatever hellhole you came from, but you did something that condemned you to catch the attention of the Phantom Troupe. Most people don't get to put a face to the Phantom Troupe and survive."

"The who?" I ask.

The sheer, gaping mouth look on Fazier's face and the quiver in his arms meaning that he wanted to shake me told me my question was a very stupid one.

"Who?! I save your life and you've got jokes?" His voice roars, only the second time he had ever snapped furiously at me. The first being when I appeared in his market with a land mine and " _piss off, you scam artist_ _"_ he yelled. "That's not real TNT, baking soda dyed yellow or turmeric. Not the real stuff."

I glance away into his shadow, the sun too hot and I'm sick of people yelling at me. He seems to realize my question is sincere.

"Are you even from this planet? The Phan _tom_ Troupe."

Three words, an article, one title that had made Fazier quake with fear yet to me they're mere sounds I could attach to the two wastes of air who made my day terrible. Repeating it did nothing.

Fazier sets his fists to his hips and I see his pits are damp and dark from sweat. "I'm chuffed. Never heard of 'em? And you've been in Meteor City for how long? I'm convinced now you're an alien."

The needle sting of my wrist jolts all the way up to my shoulder and I throw Fazier the dirtiest glare I can.

Even with how pathetic I surely look, Fazier holds up open palms, taking the hint.

"Alright." He sighs and scratches his sideburns in the way he always did when he needed to explain something to me painstakingly at length. "Listen and listen good. Those two? Part of the infamous Phantom Troupe. Who are they? They're a band of thieves and murderers, homegrown.' He taps his foot, homegrown in Meteor City. "Class A bandits. They do a lot of good for the city but do not mess with them none. Don't even look at one."

I get the picture, but why is Fazier phrasing it like I had been the one to instigate the incident?

Blondie's grasp, the way he positioned his fingers as if he could read the bones under my skin, I could tell he wasn't an amateur. And Collar, the trick with his hand. He's a nen user. So is Blondie I bet. Phantom-whatever, that fact aside, on the basis they're nen users they're not to be messed with.

"Are they always in Meteor City?" I ask.

"Rarely, actually. You got unlucky. Or lucky. You lived to tell the tale."

I dust off the sand from my trousers and the cigarette ash from my sleeve. I fix my scarf finally but like when you burn your tongue with hot soup and say goodbye to your taste buds for three days, my nasal passages are so inflamed the stench of Meteor City doesn't even offend me.

"What made you come?" I ask.

"Honestly? A bad feeling in my gut when you left after I warned you about Fisherman and the Mafia," says Fazier. "You walked out on that final note when I spoke of the Devil and I'm pretty superstitious. I thought, 'I spoke of the Devil, she opened the door, and he will surely come'. I didn't foresee that the Devil this time would be the Phantom Troupe."

I remember his bunny hops, trying to save my ass.

"Thank you, Fazier," I say.

"Don't mention it. I said I'd back ya up didn't I?" There's still a tremble in his voice and his features hang with a haggardness. He takes my sack and turns to leave with sweat butterflying on his robes.

Another question lingers in the air like the burn from Collar's aura. I almost ignore it, but I finally ask, "Fazier, where do the mines go after you hock them?"

He pauses in the sand and like Blondie, if he is pressed to glance my way, face me as he answers, he doesn't listen. I hear a snicker and Fazier, like a coin that flipped and landed on his wisecracker side. "I've already answered enough of your questions today."

* * *

Is that dried blood or a smear of chocolate on my finger? A dry reddish brown stain is etched into the lines on the side of my index finger.

The market teems with people and yet I feel disconnected from them. I'm an observer peering through the looking glass, unable to pass through it. Silence in the swarm, not a single Gortese voice. I never hoped for a warm embrace in Meteor City, but there is something disquieting about loneliness in a sea of people. Different language, different customs, different upbringing. If there are protective institutions of law and order here, I haven't heard of them yet.

A man driving a cart of straw almost runs me over as if I'm not there. A slew of Gortese expletives under my breath, but I don't bother with the man. I'm still dealing with the adrenaline rush from my early and dangerous encounter with the so-called Phantom Troupe. My instincts are still guiding my body on autopilot. My one good fist is still tight and my legs have enough energy at the ready to race to the coast hundreds of miles away.

Maybe I should leave Meteor City. Maybe I'm tired of not understanding this lawless land? Fazier never called me stupid but he'd sigh, scratch his sideburns and explain to me like I'm five years old. I'm a five-year-old in Meteor City. Not even just language, but in sensibility. I'm so smart in Gortese but I can't force or funnel any of it into Japanese. I didn't get a manual of what I need to know here to survive. Maybe I don't care to learn from scratch. Maybe I should go home—

I slap my cheek so hard I almost knock out my tooth fillings. "Stop it," I say aloud, comforting myself in my home language.

 _So Blondie and Collar scared you a little? Fear keeps you alert, alive. Everyone feels it. Panic is the real enemy. Panic shuts your brain down and renders you absolutely useless. You didn_ _'t panic. You did your best and you survived. You're doing fine. You're doing better than you think._

I cradle my injured hand against my shoulder, the singeing, stinging and swelling is worse than the severe carpal tunnel syndrome I experienced in the assembly lines. Burned so bad and I suffered many sleepless nights until they moved me to another division.

Despite Blondie's jeer, wanting to experiment, I can't work with one hand. I'll be out of commission for at least a week. It's not the loss of money but the boredom that irks me. I don't have any books, I don't shop beside the necessities, and I have no friends for company. I'm not used to not working. Perhaps I ought to seek information on how to find a smuggler, but I don't have to think about it today.

I keep walking to spend restless energy. My adrenaline thunders every time someone brushes against me, no matter how accidental or innocent, in the crowds.

I try to bend my mangled fingers and close my palm. I manage quivers as if the command is obscured and will not reach my finger joints. If I were home, I wouldn't be able to hold chopsticks properly for at least a month. At least in Meteor City, the food isnt cut small enough to need chopsticks or forks. Street cuisine in Meteor City is something I have yet to put a beat on. Hand-held foods you could run with. Halve loaves of bread with fillings, tomatoes, cabbage, onions, slices of meat if it could be got, and a dusting of pepper. Not an exquisite or sophisticated palette but hey, I'm not complaining. I've eaten much,  _much_  worse.

I keep saying nothing is broken but now I'm not sure. With the swelling, I shouldn't act so definite. Home is where I can unwind, but I'm not stubborn enough to forgo seeing a doctor. What do doctors cost in Meteor City? No clue. In West Gorteau, in the few weeks I spent in the outside world out of the East, I learned doctors in the West are exorbitantly expensive for a basic check-up. The equivalent of ten mines for one quick rub of a stethoscope.

I recall a clinic near Fazier I pass by all the time, but can't quite place in the indistinct blur of boarded windows and vendor tables—

The wind blows from the south, carrying with it the garbage, with the rich notes of high tar tobacco.

I pause and pretend to be tightening my ponytail under my scarf. I painstakingly ignore the natural instincts to peer behind because that would give away to my stalkers that I know they're out there. Adrenaline thunders, ordering my body to engage in  _flight_ not fight. I listen behind me but between squeaky cartwheels and passionate hustling in the market, it is far too noisy to draw anything from it. The breeze blows through my clothes. I inhale deeply no matter how much the garbage burned to smell. No tar.

Did they move? Did my pause signal them after all? Or am I plain wrong? Or it could have been another smoker. I press on.

I walk past Fazier's tower block, past the living room where I line up two chairs and sleep.

The civilian tower blocks are far less magnificent than the beautifully architected Council quarters but they have charm. To me at least. They're concrete and possess an East Gortese air of utilitarianism. It would take 15kg of TNT to compromise one floor of the tower and topple it. I need far less to get rid of my stalkers.

I walk all the way to a dead end in a narrow, sunless space between two unfinished tower blocks. I stare down the mouth of the alley as I wait. I unglove my hand.

A shadow on the footpath. Then a man with shoulder length mopey brown hair swerves into the mouth of the alley. Sweat runs in rivers down his neck and there's a look of delirium in his wide-pupil eyes. Something is gravely wrong. He doesn't move with the precision, speed, or arrogance of the other two. As if his limbs are controlled by marionette springs he flounces forward.

I stop his wobbles by touching my bare palm on his clammy forearm. Is he part of this elusive Phantom Troupe? Fazier didn't give me any information on their numbers. Was it just those two men or an army?

His head slumps forward with drunk heaviness. I see a purple antenna with bat wings upright in his neck. A cyborg? A machine? I squeeze the arm. It is scarred with white lines, hairy, boney, with rows of blue veins, unbelievably human. The nen pooling in my fingertips is not meant for this poor sap.

I wave my hand away from me and the man and my nen, a sprinkle of fireflies, flickers on the concrete. I suck in the deepest breath my lungs can hold.

An explosion. Unrelenting, still too sudden even though I had controlled it. Exploding concrete is an eardrum-bursting thunderous blast, that of the smashing of boulders, different from the bone-cracking, tissue rapturing of human flesh. Debris hits the man's forehead and knocks him out cold at my feet. My ears ring painfully, but it means theirs are too. The smoke is so thick my vision is shot, but that means theirs is too.

But I'm still not fast enough. Before I can crawl into the concrete hole, powerful arms catch me at the waist. Then a blunt  _chop_ at a precise pressure point at my neck. My vision of the world, already cloudy, fades to black. A half second before I surrender to the depths, multiple shadows loom towards me and a high whine, " _Ooooh man_ , he broke."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A person in Meteor City, involved with the Troupe, who uses purple antennae and complains when his toys break, could only be one person right? Next chapter we'll see all of the Troupe and I'm super excited. Tone-wise, I know things are quite grim at the moment, but there will be lighter Troupe moments. Some of my favorite scenes were the PT teasing each other, playing cards, and interacting as a (strange) family so I'll definitely work to include fun moments.
> 
> Any multilingual readers out there? Safra's frustration with trying to live in her non-native language in a place far from home comes from a personal place for me. Difficulties with communication, words lost in translation will be a reoccurring theme in this fic.


	4. Chrollo x Ghost x Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A longer chapter that opens with a quick flashback and then we cut back to the present. Here we go folks, as I promised, the Troupe chapter.

I help Huan to bed one leg at a time. First his good leg and then his stunted right leg and pigeon-toed foot. His twisted kneecap looks like a knot of dough and for this reason Huan prefers longer pants but it's an unusually warm night in EG.

His shorts don't hide the deformity and Huan watches my eyes. He hates it when I bring more attention to it or obviously check.

In the midst of tucking him in, pulling the covers to his ribs, and positioning his chair by his bedside, I snipe a furtive glance.

The doctor hadn't cared about scars when they cut him open and the unnatural folds in the skin show new tan lines and swelling from carrying weight.

"How were your legs today?" I ask this question at the end of the day and it's a customary one between us.

There's a gleam in his roasted malt eyes, our mother's eyes, the color of our father's favorite oatmeal porter. (Amari and I sneaked one once and it definitely  _did not_ taste like oatmeal, going down or coming back up.)

He wiggles his feet, elation pumping through him. "Don't be mad."

 _Wallahae, what did he do now?_ "What is it?"

He kicks his mangled leg triumphantly, tugging the blanket tucked from the cover of his made bed. "I was able to run in the gardens today."

I frown. That explains the swelling in his knee. "You told me a fib. You told me you were going to use your chair if I left you alone." I make my tone as even as possible and still, it upsets him.

His skin is rouge from his afternoon in the sun and his cheeks still redden.

"I wasn't planning to, but I thought I'd give it a try. The second it started hurting I stopped, I swear."

He swears as if  _that_ will alleviate my worries.

He shouldn't walk yet. He shouldn't stand yet. He shouldn't place  _any_ weight on his knee. Heck, he shouldn't bend his knee… "You don't need to be running yet," I say.

The bright cheer disappears from his eyes and I hate myself for making him feel bad for telling me.

"I know—I know," he says as a preemptive strike against my inevitable speech. "I…I just hate being in that stupid chair all the time."

 _I know you do_.

He crosses his arms, twisting away from me. I know he is my baby brother, I never forget that fact, but in moments like this, it coldly dawns on me that he is only seven years old. Only five years separate us and it feels like a decade.

"I trust you that you will stop if it starts hurting," I say, relenting some. "Just don't let Amari see you."

I'm throwing Amari under the bus but she'd mangle  _my_ legs if she knew Huan had gone for a run when I was supposed to be supervising him. It had been on my watch his knee was blasted apart from shrapnel in the first place.

Huan sighs, squeezing the hem of his blanket. "She worries too much."

"She doesn't want you to get hurt again. Nor do I so don't make me regret letting you go out by yourself." I cup his chin for emphasis; the boy doesn't like to listen sometimes. I don't blame him though. My sister and I are broken records.

Chin still cupped he counters, "You and Amari climbed the apartment building, jumped from the top of Jin's shop and had jellyfish battles on the beach."

I want to sink into the floor, wishing for the gazillionth time I had never told him about our escapades. Mother,  _may she rest in peace,_  would scold us every day. So over protective, I thought. Climbing that ten story building, it's not a big deal mother,  _we were being careful._

Just because  _we_ did it back in the day, it doesn't make it a bright idea for him to try. Why couldn't he understand that the mere thought of him being hurt angered me more than anything in the world—Wallahae, I sound just like my mother.

"Yes, I did those things and I spent a lot of months in body casts," I say. My bones have been broken so many times a doctor looking at an x-ray would think I had blitzed my skeleton in a blender and glued everything back together. Yet injuries from childhood stupidity, while immensely painful, are inherently innocent and incomparable to the sin of child's leg destroyed by unexploded ordinances.

Huan pouts and I decide to change the subject.

"How are your lessons?" I ask.

"We're doing military history. I'm learning all about contemporary war methods." Huan sits up from his sudden rush of excitement. I'll never get him to sleep now.

"—he was showing me the military gear and how it's built!" Huan had pulled out a notebook beside his lamp near his bed and flipped through the pages, pointing at rough drawings. "Look at this! Designed for three-dimensional movement. You use these to hook to a space then you reel yourself in like you're flying!"

I glance over the drawings, mildly intrigued but I received the same lessons when I was his age.

His chipper tone suddenly sours. "Do you think they'd let me join the military?"

My blood freezes, ice cold. It is an especially humid night in EG and I actually shiver at the thought. I don't meet eyes with him. I pretend to be fixing his bed corner and puffing the seat in his wheel chair.

"Safra?" He asks and I use the softest tone I can manage with profound anger clouding my mind. I wring his seat cushion like it's a dishtowel.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why not?"

The desire to join the military is so utterly beyond me I can't think of an argument more compelling than, "Why would you even want to, Huan?"

"You think I can't do it. Because of my leg, isn't it?"

Because of the military, you barely have a leg. My lips tremble but with self-censorship honed after twelve years of practice, I hold it in.

As much as I'd love a hard-handed approach, Huan is too sensitive and too stubborn (he got that from me and Amari). Of all my traits I wish I could instill in him, I wish I could feed him my wrath for the military for what they did to him.

It's my fault he doesn't listen to me. I confuse him. I'm not a parent. I'm supposed to be an older sister, the middle sister, the one who is more lenient. I barely respected my mother's authority and rules, I sure as hell wouldn't obey my older sister, so why in the world would Huan listen to me?

Besides, I can't measure how much I should take this dream of his seriously. When I was seven, if asked, I'd probably say I wanted to become a mermaid.

Still, I'm forever trying to encourage Huan that he can do anything he wants, regardless of his leg injury.

"No, I didn't say that. Not because of your leg. Because there's nothing to worry about. East Gorteau has a standing army of over 3 million and there hasn't been any opposition since Ming Jol-ik's inauguration."

"So?"

"So, what you would even be doing? Changing the flag when it rains? Patrol the palace grounds in the heat in a stuffy uniform? Doesn't that sound boring?"

The lamp on his desk flickered. A few desperate fade ins before the light gives up entirely. That puts an end to the conversation. I've never been more thankful for a blackout.

"Oh, the power. There it goes," says Huan. I am right next to him yet I grab his hand.

"Give it a second," I say in total darkness.

Before I can worry about jinxing it, the light powers on, even brighter than before, with a conviction. As it always did.

"Weird isn't it? A few floors down, when Park's family loses electricity it  _stays_ out yet ours always comes on."

I read a question hidden in his words. Not only Park's family. The entire building, block, town. Our one apartment betrayed the absolute darkness, like a firefly glowing against a dark curtain.

The same question I got once a day: why does your apartment always have electricity?

At first, when I was younger, the question jabbed but was light-hearted. Why are you buggers so lucky? What a weird coincidence? If your father is an electrician, send him our way, they'd say with a suggestive wink. As the famine worsened and when most people had at most an hour of power per day, the questions became laced with more and more jealous suspicion.

"Probably something in the wiring when this building was constructed," I tell Huan, the words rolling off my tongue because I've uttered that half-baked theory a million times.

"But when they came they found nothing," says Huan. The State, he means. They came three times and gutted the apartment looking for a generator, special wiring, magical machine, elves. Who knows. But they found nothing out of the ordinary. Yet our power came on when most of the country hung in darkness.

When I was Huan's age, I was curious too. As you get older, you learn to not ask dangerous questions. It was a blessing because we'd let the older  _abijis_  in the building bake their foods with our power at the cost of them giving us a cut of the baked product.

Our strange power source helped keep us fed during the arduous famine.

"Let's just be happy we have power," I say. "Now I'm going to shut off your lamp so you can sleep." I hold my finger over the switch. "Do you need anything before I go?"

He shakes his head but is interrupted with a long yawn. He may have gone running without my permission but at least it tired him out.

I peck him on the top of his black tresses and switch off the light. His hair also the color of our mother's, the color I wish I had snatched from her. Instead, I got the brassy copper, like a weathered penny, from our father. He'd always coo about Amari's features. "Amari, your dark hair, dark eyes, you're so cute."

To me, he'd say, "Safra, your eyes were supposed to be green, I could tell, but they have no color in them. You have gloomy, gloomy ghost eyes."

* * *

The pulsing from my injured hand is what drags me to the surface. I am not in Fazier's living room. The light that dapples on the stone floor is a mosaic of colors through a pane of stained glass. The echoic, high-ceiling ambiance of a house of worship, like the Council's Headquarters, but there's no way I'm there.

The smell of the garbage is far too muted. The stale air is perfume to my nose. I can smell the tobacco that lingers in my hair from Blondie's well-aimed puffs. Am I even in Meteor City anymore? The thought of not being in Meteor City fills me with more relief than I care to share.

How long has it been? The buzzing in my ears from the explosion is gone, muscle soreness from Blondie's torment and the whiplash in my neck have settled in, my mouth is very dry and my stomach sucks itself in from a few missed meals. It's been half a day at least.

The light from the window pane is soft and the shadows are long, which means it's morning. It could be the morning of the second day, but I reckon it has only been eighteen hours. I stretch, counting. Ten toes. While groggy and achy, my legs flex. Muscle tear like the day after a hard workout, but no atrophy. Muscle atrophy can set in within mere days of disuse, ask me how I know that.

I rub my hands together. Ten fingers. Something padded and fingerless covered my hands as if I rubbed knitted quilts together. Are these…oven mitts? I flex my thumb, touch the fingerless tips. I feel like some sort of weird crab.

I tap my back pocket. My square wrench is gone. I tap my waist. The piece of cardboard I use to map the mines is gone. I tap my neck with my mittens but don't feel the scrape of a thin chain. They took that too.

Again, I confirm it is the morning because the light gets stronger and the shadows shrink in the chamber. Soon the light touches the highest corner and I can see the gothic stone walls. Sculpted into the stone are men in billowing robes. Murals of divine beings and humans among the divine awash in a beacon from the high heavens.

I remember Ang Kaa, the most opulent of the jungle temples near my city. A mark of the Gortese golden age when my ancestors realized they descended from demigods. Nothing could ever be as beautiful and menacing as the Ang Kaa. When journalists spoke of East Gorteau as the 'Divine spark that lit the fiery gates of hell' they are speaking of Ang Kaa. The most spectacular temple in the world, the door to Heaven, forever befouled as Hell on Earth where one million Gortese were imprisoned, tortured and killed when Ming Jol-ik seized power.

To purify our country he tainted the most sacred site in all of Gorteau.

I lie in the shadows, captured, and thirsty in a house of worship with foreign gods I barely recognize from school studies. There aren't any smears of black blood on the walls, nor the permanent stench of death by torture, nor the distant echo of screams you weren't sure if you really heard or not. A holy place of worship, at first I feel at ease but then uncertain.

My blood could simply be the first the splatter like ink on its smooth walls.

The creak of a spring, twist of a knob and light pours in. Multiple figures I can't distinguish crowd the door frame but one figure moves in. They don't shut the door all the way, barring those outside but creaking the door just enough for light.

"Do not be afraid," says an approaching velvety voice. A tall slender woman.

I see the razor cut ends of her ash-brown hair, but her face is cast in shadows. Her palm graces along my mittens to my elbow.

What time is it, no what day is it, I want to ask.

"You must be wondering how long we've kept you here," she says. "It's the early morning. We placed you here after you fell unconscious. My companion hit you a little too hard in the head."

Blondie. I picture him chopping my neck so clearly. Somehow I guess the overzealous brunt force  _wasn_ _'t_ a hapless accident. Or at least maybe it was an accident that I survived.

"Is there anything you need?"

Are these merciful captors? I want food, water, a full bottle of aspirin—

Something encroaches, from my elbow. Faint, barely there but there, the gentle crawling legs of a spider. Gouts of purple aura smoke over my face and manipulate my mind, flipping pages of a book. With energy I don't have, I will my mind to close. I literally picture shutting a book and catching her finger between the spines.

The aura pushes with impressive force, but my mental wall doesn't yield.

She releases my elbow and the crawling sensation disappears.

"You're a nen user," she says in tranquil monotone.

I thought the others saw? Or did that grape of information not make it down the grapevine? Or they didn't see clearly in the fuss. "You are too," I say. Blondie and Collar. "They are too. Who are you people?"

Her fingers close around my throat, long nails digging into my skin. I catch her wrist with both hands, failing to remember until that I have oven mitts for hands. Instead of shutting the book, I yell in my mind,  _all I need to do is overpower these mittens_ _—_

She all but throws me aside, appreciating the danger sooner than I ever expected. Did she read my ability from my mind or she could tell from the nature of my aura? I cough for air, rubbing my scratched throat.

I still don't catch her face when she silently turns her heel, walks out and shuts the door behind her. Leaving me in disquieting darkness again. At least for a little while longer I can enjoy the color glass and the shapes as it plays on the cathedral hollows.

Not too long later the door is kicked open and its hinges give.

I've only met the bastard twice now and I already know it's Blondie coming to fetch me by his gruff exhale and the rhythm of his footsteps. I know he can be very quiet, but instead he stomps. Like my younger brother when he was a toddler stomping a tantrum.

Blondie doesn't even spare me the dignity of walking on my feet. He grabs me by both arms and carts me over like a piece of furniture. No worse than that. I feel like a kitten, limp and helpless, carried by the scruff of its neck. I smell high tar cigarettes on him, the same spicy scent that triggered my senses near the market. It awakened my adrenaline then and it's doing it again now.

In the dimly lit hall, a slew of steps but they're so smooth the sound skates with Blondie's stomps. Light from a foggy window and within arm's reach, Collar stews next to Blondie and watches me like a hawk on crack.

I say nothing. Somehow in the midst of my lounging in a dark chamber, I had transgressed them again.

While I thought they were taking me outside (to a firing squad or something) we move into the grand cathedral.

Collar doesn't make a sound, but Blondie's footsteps echo high and far away. The ceiling is so high I can't make out the abstract patterns, only a blur. But my eyes are adjusted to the dim chamber and I see the others in the cathedral long before the chill of their shadows loom over me.

Even the walls have ears and they share with me what they've heard. The Phantom Troupe has called this decrepit church home since their creation. They are the malaise creeping between the walls and how a house of worship can feel so far away from God.

I gaze up and count seven long shadows. Troupe meant crew so these seven must be the troupe. At first nondescript silhouettes became a gallery of seven distinct characters.

A woman similar to my height with tied cotton candy hair, but sweet, fluffy and sugar-spun are the last words I'd associate with her by first glance. Now I've never experienced winter  _cold_ before but the arctic blue of her eyes evokes the beauty and burden of ice. Glacial blues sustain a gaze on me, reading me from my unbrushed hair to the dusty trim of my tunic. She wears gloves like me, but hers are fingerless. What did she need to protect her hands from? Then I see the needles. They stick out of the pin cushion on her hand like spines of a porcupine.

Next to her, slouches a man clad in a kimono much too heavy for the sweltering weather outside. The purple kimono drapes over him, shapeless and forgiving on his slender frame. At my entrance, he gathers his long silky hair into a topknot on the crown of his head. His kimono is solidly colored, plain compared to gauzy silk dye and lavish robes painted with flowers, but it works on him. He looks dignified and poised, even with the scruff of facial hair, as if he had nothing to prove. While I'm admiring his kimono, I caught the line of his droopy eyes. The sword held straight in his left hand- _chik!-_ a warning nudge at the sheath guard from his thumb.

In the opposite corner sits a woman in a flattering, well-tailored miniskirt with  _loong_ supple legs I immediately envy. She sits to the side, her razor hair cut and aquiline nose in perfect profile. She must be the one who tried to interrogate me with her ability. I try not to notice the six-shooter that she is conspicuously cleaning with a handkerchief. In addition to being able to tear someone's head open like pages ripped from a book, with that pistol I bet she could pepper me like the over-spiced cinnamon lattes that are all the rage in WG.

Next to her is another blondie. I could see his wintergreen eyes, or maybe they're bluer than that, not wintergreen, but juniper. Whatever, I can go on for ages about his eyes. I can see them the clearest because they take up the majority of his baby face. He's muscular like snake-face blondie but the curiosity beaming in his smile made him seem less threatening. He carries a phone with demon wings, the same kind the antennae jabbed in the man's neck. Maybe in this case, less threatening first impressions are wrong...

I have to crane my neck to see all of the next man. He stands double my height, and with his upright grizzled hair, his great mass actually skews my depth perception in the high ceiling cathedral. None of them look scrawny, but he's a Beef-Mountain, probably raised on super steroids.  _A_ nimal pelts and thick patches of hair cover his muscular body. His hands could swallow my head and could probably rip a tank in half. His expression is the most distinct, mouth closed but wide with glints of wicked mischief in his eyes.

Next is a willowy man, with long thin limbs like a giraffe and hair colored ashy, like volcanic soot. A ring pierced in his bottom lip. His skin has a gray waxy sheen to it, like a vinyl doll. A long gray fringe hangs over his eyes, masking him. Dressed in a velvet coat so perfectly stone colored, he could blend seamlessly into the cathedral shadows if he wrapped his hair in stocking. I get the need for stylish aesthetic, but looking at him alone conjures memories of dizzy heatstroke.

Last but sure as hell not least is a hulkish man who appeared literally spliced and stitched together. Overlong, pierced earlobes dangle around his chest and at first glance  _I thought was a fleshy- colored scarf hanging from his neck._ Thick stitches and an unnerving disjointedness in his limbs visible in how he sat. He is huge, like beef-mountain, but I can't decide who is king in that regard. I think I used beef mountain too early...

Needles, katanas, extra muscle and even  _guns_. Heh. What do ya know? Turns out I wasn't wrong about the firing squad.

Blondie drops me right into the unforgiving beam of sun and I hate him for it.

"Ready, danchou."

_Slam._

A sound I had heard hundreds of times before yet I don't immediately recognize in the unnerving in the echoic cathedral. What I now realize was the shutting of a crisp book cover. I look above leggy and baby face and see a man who must have been invisible ten seconds prior. Seriously, how did I not sense him?

Blondie had used the word 'danchou', which I don't understand. Is it his name? Nine members turn and yield to him. The meaning dawns on me. Danchou means boss.

He wears an imperial purple coat that bares his moonlight white chest. Without a doubt, the whitest pearly skin I've ever seen and after spending a few weeks in West Gorteau where girls bleached their skin  _that is saying something._

Animal fur on his hood and cuffs, again, what is with the winter aesthetic wardrobe in the desert? The fur billows on his collar, mimicking the brilliance of a white lion's mane. A trail of yellow buttons on the trim, probably one for each of his exposed, chiseled abs that I see perfectly… Sleek back hair but not in an overly greasy style like some men in WG. Impeccable and not a strand out of place. He hunches his shoulders, slouching forward, with a book on his knee, a remarkably humble way of sitting for a boss.

Orb earrings made of jade beckon my eyes to his face that despite the unfortunate circumstance I find quite handsome. A tattoo on his forehead, I can't make out the intricate specifics but I recognize the cross shape from the murals in this house of worship. This man,  _Danchou,_ belongs here. Belongs to this house of worship, to this curious city.

Finally, I meet his large round eyes and I'm charmed to find that his are the same empty color as mine. The boss of the infamous Phantom Troupe has ghost eyes too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I left it off there because there is a ton of description in this chapter. I hope not too much. But what do you think of my rendition of the Troupe so far? I loved getting to talk about their character details through Safra's eyes, especially Danchou who is one of my favorite troupe members. The guy with the ash hair is Omokage if you remember from Phantom Rogue, but I'm going to take some liberties with his character and flesh him out a little. And now you have seen glimpses of Safra's two abilities that I promise are not random that will receive more explanation in the coming chapters. Lastly, anyone notice the AoT reference?
> 
> Thank you for the kudos since the last chapter! Hope this new chapter is to your liking! I'd love to know what you all thought.


	5. Alone x with x Danchou

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: Abiji in this fic means grandmother or woman who is elderly age.

Most people, if I utter 'the 79th Meridian' will immediately picture the border between West and East Gorteau. 3 miles wide, 300 miles long, it's officially known as the demilitarized buffer zone (DMZ for short). When I hear 79th Meridian I see a graveyard. I hear the hum of thousands of land mines. I see bones of my fallen countrymen blanched by the jungle sun. This line of longitude stretches north through the gullies, groves, plains, mountain ranges, and desert terrain of the Yorubian continent. As an East Gortese, the coincidence isn't lost on me that it is this meridian, that breaks Gorteau in two also cuts Meteor City in half.

* * *

I expect their danchou to say something cartoonishly menacing, 'don't you know who we are?!' with his arms spread wide in the air. That he'd let their name and reputation do the work for him. But instead he surveys me in the harsh, exposing spotlight of the sun with quiet curiosity.

The same foreboding that had uneased me in the fields slithers on my clammy neck again.

Save for my mittens and my two gruff escorts, I'm unrestrained here in the middle of the cathedral. I can move my hands and feet freely. But I'm not foolish enough to entertain the thought of outrunning them. These mittens though, bulky, red like boxing gloves, there's something peculiar about their fabrication. I can't read the material or channel my aura to my fingertips as if the aura nodes were closed in my arm. I rub my padded thumb against my injured arm, soothing an itch from the tight gray tape.

Blondie and Collar's silhouettes shift. Aura steams from Collar's clenched hand and Blondie's knuckles  _crack._

"Don't try anything cocky," warns Collar, creased eyes lined at the brim of his skull collar. "Those gloves can take the heat. I know because they're  _mine._ "

It's not heat, I don't say.

A restrained snicker in the crowd of eight that broke into a howl of laughter from a barrel chest. Beef-Mountain throws the beast-claw of his pelt over his shoulder like the tail of a scarf. His voice expands as if his own throat were a megaphone, projecting his voice naturally. "That  _teeny, tiny_ thing I'm looking at has the two of you spooked?"

"She's a nen user," says Six-Shooter with the amazing legs.

"So?" says Beef-Mountain with a toothy sneer.

Blondie snits and Collar's aura evaporates. Though I am sure these guys are gonna rip me apart, seeing those two getting ripped by their comrade is satisfying.

Beef-Mountain's glee is infectious and Samurai next to him smirks.

"Why is she wearing your gloves, Feitan? Were three of you really needed to capture this dust bunny?" asks Samurai, a thinly-veiled jab.

Samurai pokes his sandal at Baby-Face's hip who holds up his hands in protest and says, "I was asked to be support.  _Sah,_ she still broke one of my toys."

Alright, I get it. You all think I'm puny. Haven't they ever heard that big things can come in small packages?

Glacial-Blues, whose icy impression rightly suggested, isn't distracted by their humor. "What were you able to find, Paku?"

Paku drops her handkerchief and locks the revolver cylinder into place with a sharp  _clink!_ "Nothing at the surface to suggest she knows anything," she says. I can confirm by the velvety tone of her voice that she was the one who entered my chamber and scratched my throat trying to wriggle my mind open. Scratch marks inflame on my neck from her nails, but it's a nothing-injury. My mind had been impenetrable as a vault.  _Abiji,_ I thought I would never need it, but I owe you one.

"She had seven mines in her bag. She doesn't know  _nothing,_ _"_ says Feitan.

Flattering as it may be for you to think I'm at the center of an elaborate dumping scheme, I do NOT know as much as you think I do, Collar-boy.

"The surface, Paku?" repeats Glacial-Blues, setting a gloved hand to her sheen-purple obi sash.

"Without support, it's too risky for me to examine her closely," says Paku.

"What's her ability?" asks Glacial-Blues.

"I'm not certain. She kicked me out before I could delve further."

Samurai rubs the scruff on his chin. "Oh? So a strong mental ability? Still, doesn't explain the gloves."

"When my toy broke, there was an exothermic reaction," says Baby-Face. "Feitan says it's heat. What says you, Paku?"

"Could be. I'm still not certain."

"It's not like Fei's. It's faster," says Blondie.

You're getting warmer, Blondie.

"Since those two are useless,  _I_ can hold her down while you examine her, Paku," jeers Beef-Mountain. "A little heat doesn't scare me."

A vein pronounces in Blondie's jaw and his brows knit, but his beady eyes are fixed on me.

"That won't be necessary Uvo," says Paku.

It's more than the mines. They care about my nen. They're talking about me in front of me. I might as well not be here.

"Why am I here?" I ask before I think twice. A more cautious me would have kept her pie-hole shut, but dehydration, hunger,  _standing in this beam of blasted sunlight,_  and irritation from Blondie and Feitan's relentless suspicion loosens my lips. Another shift in the two's steps, but before they can scold me for 'speaking without being spoken to' I say, "You grilled me and Fazier. What questions of yours did we not satisfy?"

My jarring Japanese and its imperfect inflections bounce off the stone walls. My phrases are simple ones, but I doubt each word. The sounds twist wrong in my mouth. Wrong because I had never left the 79th meridian. Wrong as my being in Meteor City, awaiting judgment from these bandits.

"Fazier?" A new voice from the crowd, a booming voice but clearer than Uvo's rasp. Stitch Frankenstein's disjointed limbs twitch as he turns a pierced overlong lobed towards me, making sure he heard right. "Fazier, renowned merchant of Meteor City's weapons market?"

"Huh? You've heard of him?" asks Blondie.

Baby-Face taps his chin. "Neh, Franklin, aren't you thinking of the mob-boss Fisherman? Er, wait, never mind, I've mixed them up. If I recall, Fazier  _isn_ _'t_  Mafia."

"Doesn't matter. They're all the same kind of men," says Franklin.

I scratch—rub at the itch more at the comparison. Fazier, who saved my ass twice, helped me maneuver Meteor City's winding streets, gave me a shaded place to stay should not be in the same sentence as some mob boss.

"Why isn't Fazier here then since it's clear she's the grunt of the group?" says Glacial-Blues and I'm irked even more.

The question hangs in the stuffy sanctuary air. It's a relevant one that Blondie and Feitan aren't keen on answering. Not that I want Fazier to be in my place, but since it's clear I'm not the mastermind of the mine operation then why did I get dragged in here?

"Are you gonna say it?" Feitan asks Blondie.

"Fazier is dead," says Blondie.

My mouth falls agape. His flat tone didn't suit the statement's magnitude.

Samurai clicks his teeth. "Screw that one up, huh?"

Baby-Face and Paku sigh with annoyance as if it were a minor infraction.

"He would have been a better lead," says Glacial-Blues, crossing her arms indignantly.

No, there must be a mistake. The man I spoke to and handed my bag of mines to a day ago couldn't be gone. And who  _are_  these people that a death is dismissed as an inconvenient mishap?

"So any answers you want, you're gonna have to drill out of her," says Blondie, his pronounced vein pulsing.

"I have a  _few_ ideas on how to get started on that,  _ne?_ " says Feitan, his voice dripping with malice and if it weren't for the cover over his mouth, I sense we'd see a creepy smile from ear-to-ear.

"Before that," says a mellifluous voice with a strange omnipresence that seems to halt the entire world. For a moment, not even Blondie and Feitan glare at me. Under the gothic arch, on the tallest block of stone, jade earrings glimmer as their leader awash with light finally speaks. "What is on my friend's hand?"

My eyes betray me as they widen at Blondie's right hand then avert to the circle of light on the stone floor.

The ten turn to Blondie and they see what I've been hiding all along: the yellow bangle stuck to his wrist like a second skin.

Sweat glistens on Blondie's temple as he flicks his hand, trying to shake off the nen. "What the hell? I don't remember her touching me?"

"She caught you, remember? When you were about to twist her arm off," says Feitan.

"Oh yeah that's right," says Blondie emotionally unaffected like he had forgotten an errand.

Another round of bone-popping knuckles, cascading like piano keys. "Do you cuff everyone you meet?" He barks.

His offense  _floors_ me. Excuse me?! "Did you forget 'A Farewell to Arms'? If you weren't about to break off my arm, I wouldn't have done it."

"Ah, Feitan," says Baby-Face. "Are you still reading that? I wanted to borrow it."

"I'll lend it to you," says Feitan.

 _"Oi!"_ protests Glacial-Blues. "I already asked before."

"Ahh!" Feitan nods, jogging his memory. "Machi right. She next. Then you, Shal."

"Hehhh." Shal sighs with a pout.

What is wrong with these people? ? I am at my wit's end. They're on a different wavelength and I don't have a prayer.

Blondie motions to charge forward and I stiffen, falling back on my heel. "Touch me and it explodes."

There is an exposed leaky pipe and a droplet of water splashes somewhere in the shadows, it grew so silent. Even the humor is wiped off Uvo's mug.

Blondie's knitted brows knit even more but he dons a smile. "A bluff."

"Go ahead and test it," I say and to my petty amusement, his arrogant smile cracks.

"Can you remove it?" asks their boss. I can barely stand to take my attention off Blondie to answer him.

"I can. But you'll need to take my mittens off." I lift my awkward crab hands.

Feitan seethes, not caring for my calling his precious gloves mittens.

"I can take off your gloves and begin to remove the bones in your hand joint by joint. You'll want to remove it in no time." He slinks behind me and he's so stealthy his image splits into a trio of feints. I can't see his feet move.

"What will happen if it explodes?" asks their boss.

I picture the hairline of nen blasting Blondie's radius before crescendoing at the socket where his humerus and shoulder meet, obliterating his brachial artery. "He loses his arm, maybe an eye and ear too." He'll lose a pint of blood easy, if not bleed to death.

Even if it might cost him an arm, Blondie growls bearishly, murderous intent radiating.

"I understand." Their boss nods and I sense a change in the tide coming. He meets eyes with me and then surveys the nine below him from his great height. "Please leave us."

"Danchou, which two do you want by your side," asks Uvo.

"No one this time," says their boss. "All of you leave."

The nine pause, paralyzed at the order—is that disbelief or concern? 'No guards' is apparently a big deal.

"Heh?" says Samurai. "You really want no guards, Danchou?"

Ashy hair with the magnificent long coat stands, his giraffe limbs even longer now than when he sat. He runs his tongue over his lip piercing and says, "An order from Danchou is absolute." He speaks silkily like their boss, but unnaturally to me like a voice-mimicry that couldn't quite fool you.

"Everyone please leave us," says their boss a third, final time. "Under no circumstances are any of you allowed to come back in until I open that door."

He launches down and lands with the faintest of taps, weightless on his booted feet even after falling at least twenty feet.

What are these people?

Ashy Hair is the first to follow orders and slowly, one by one, they file out. They size me up with their individual mix of contempt, suspicion and vague curiosity. The aura that smolders in my proximity, firey hot, I am dwarfed by its immensity. My empty stomach churns as I struggle to comprehend it.

The Earth shakes as Uvo saunters by me with a sneer plastered again on his sharp features. He veers last second. His jaw gnashes a hair breadth from my ear, the chomp of his teeth ripples through my skull.

I can't escape the mental image of him literally biting my ear off. Something on the brink of being inhuman. My shoulders shiver in a fit of fright. Adrenaline surges, but I  _order_ it.  _Do. Not. Panic. Remember what Abiji said, mind over matter. Breathe._ I exhale and my muscles do too. It takes a lot, but the instincts for fight or flight are held at bay.

"Ho?" Uvo giggles. "A normal person would have cried out." He walks away.

My shoulders slump and I breathe.

Blondie is the last to follow orders, trudging out, with the vein in his jaw about to burst. He locks the door and shuts it from the outside, sucking the air out. With the nine out, I can read the atmosphere more clearly but their abundance of excitement lingers as an aftertaste. There is one other and his presence is the most ambiguous of them all.

Boots on the stone and I squint into the sunlight as their Danchou approaches. The sun-rays gleam over his chest a little too appreciatively… Standing as straight as I can the top of my head wouldn't meet his chin. He is much taller than me, but a tad shorter than Blondie. "Let's get you out of the sun. Come sit."

He gestures to the stone blocks and wood crates where the others once occupied. I sit at one and he chooses one but drags it closer. Much closer.

Sitting I can extend my leg and tap his knee, he is sitting so close. I do my best not to stare at his milky white chest but then I can only meet his eyes, which I now notice are lined with long flush lashes.

His forehead tattoo isn't just a cross. Four lines of a diamond balance the cross and what I thought were sharp points are round spades.

He is very handsome, too handsome. I remember the brawny men with beautiful features carved meticulously into the stone in my chamber. There is an eeriness to his flawless looks as if he were one of those statues brought to life.

There are two people I know with breath-taking looks. Where it wasn't one feature, but the cohesion of their features that produced mesmerizing symmetry. As if they warp gravity and draw you into them. First is my sister, Amari, the crown-jewel of our family. The second is the Phantom Troupe's  _danchou._ I uttered the word in my mind's voice. Danchou.

He sits level with me, ghost eyes meeting ghost eyes. Chagrined, I prepare myself. I know what he's trying to do.

"May I?" He outstretches his hand, motioning to my oven mitts.

I blink. I'm not gonna refuse, but his asking to take the stopper off my nen is very bold.

I extend my arms and he gently peels the overlapping rolls of tape without irritating my skin and one by one the heavy gloves come off. I wince when he holds my injured hand which still resembles a livid plum when he removes the glove. A shadowy hand print that left nothing to speculation.

"It seems things got out of hand and I apologize for their frightening you," he says. This makes me look up. He's apologizing?

Again, I expect cartoon villain, twirling a mustache, not some ridiculously good-looking man atoning for the mistakes of his crew. "My dear friends, especially those two, can be temperamental when merely conversing with you would have saved them and you so much trouble."

Friends, he calls them. Of all the things for my mind to narrow on, friends, not some superior ordering around some underlings.

I set my hands in my lap and I'm conscious of their nakedness. Fresh air feels weird now after wearing gloves constantly for so long. I kept a spare pair in my drawer space at Fazier's but the likelihood I'd be allowed to retrieve them is slim.

"Are you more comfortable now?" he asks, moving Feitan's gloves beside him on the wooden crate.

"Is that it?" I say a little abrupt. He pauses, waiting for me to continue. "An apology for my discomfort? What about Fazier? The only sympathetic eye on me in Meteor City and his only folly was facing your  _friends._ "

He nods. He is so close I hear his chest heave. Not regretful for my injuries or even Fazier's death but for his lack of oversight to mention it before I did. "You are right," he says. "I am sorry for what befell your comrade."

I know this isn't what he called me here, alone and I want him to cut to the chase.

The  _plop_  of water near the wall from the leaky pipe. The wet dots on the ground remind me of a prelude to a rain shower. The closest I'm gonna get to rain in this desert hell-hole.

"Are you familiar with the Council Quarters?"

He doesn't need an affirmative answer from me. The first thing you see when you approach Meteor City is the humongous cross of the Council's Quarters, the light tower the guides you in the desert expanse.

"You must have seen the graves," he says.

The graveyard of bodies draped with white linens waiting to be cremated. I have seen it once. Once is enough. Pockets of white and the distinct rot of dead bodies.

"How many?" I ask.

"274," he says. It sounds precise.

That's only deaths and it doesn't count the three hundred dismembered and crippled by the mines.

"I do not believe you are involved with the land mines. They've been around here much longer than you've been in Meteor City. So please pardon my curiosity. Very few people in the outside world know about this city. How did you find it?"

Though upon recommendation, I am urged to proclaim that I was  _not_ dumped here. I did come here on my own impetus.

"I was told to come here. I'm sorry I haven't the faintest clue of who planted them in the city. They weren't just dumped in a crate. Someone or a group scattered them in the fields as an act of cruelty."

"Do not apologize. You were told because of your ability, I presume."

Not true but I lie. "My ability, yes."

"Do you mind telling me more about your ability."

It is exhausting to keep my guard up against someone whose svelte voice puts me at ease.

"I'd rather not," I say.

"No offense taken. I ask because it must be dangerous. Working out there. By yourself. Without a special ability, I can't imagine you'd survive for long."

"I do what I can. I am only made with flesh and bone." I say massaging my palms. Despite their weight and itchiness, Feitan's mittens had a well-crafted feel that I want to ask to keep the pair. If they ever let me go.

"Why go through the danger? For a place like this?"

That makes all the sense in the world. And I'm not going to answer it.

"You are from here?" I ask, as if I'm owed a few questions.

"We are from Meteor City. This is home and we are concerned about the mine situation."

Concerned? These people are bandits, thieves, and murderers. Yet they don't match the stereotypes in my head. In the few films I've seen I expect the Phantom Troupe to be a Mafia crew of a slightly different cut but with the same leathery skin, dark suits, trilled r's, garish neck-chains and guns.

"You're a nen user," he says.

I barely know what nen is. I don't respond.

"My friend, Paku, says you mentioned it to her. I am curious. I've already asked about your abilities but what was that you used against Paku in the chamber?"

Ability?  _That?_  "It's nothing special."

"Tell me." He sets his chin into hand thoughtfully.

I savor the moment. For once  _I_ _'m_ not the one asking dumb questions. "It's not an individual ability. It's a concept of nen. It's called  _mien_ (面) guard your will."

Natural wonder lights up his face. "I understand. A specialized form of  _Ken_ _._ "

Um, what's  _Ken?_ "I'm no master."

"And yet you've reigned a dangerous ability. You're being too hard on yourself."

No. Really. I barely know what nen is. Up until a year ago, I didn't know that my aura nodes were opened or what aura was.

"Come off it," he tuts. "You sensed the others when they were tailing you with zetsu."

What is zetsu? I don't ask because I'm tired of people gawking snidely at me like I just asked the dumbest question in the world. Regardless, Blondie's smoking habit is to blame for my noticing them. All that aside, I savor the compliment from him like a sweet piece of chocolate.

"It's no wonder that you seem to be the only one around who can handle the land mines."

Maybe telling their leader how I do my job will clear up a lot of their misconceptions. Another drop of water.

"I can show you…a little."

I stand up, take a few cautious steps before striding over and using my good hand to examine the leaky pipe. It is surprisingly smooth and chill to the touch. I shut my eyes and surrender to the sensation of bathing in lukewarm, viscous liquid.  _What is your fabrication?_  My nen  _tastes_  the metal, unveiling it's secrets.

Chrome copper. Surprisingly new in a building so dilapidated. Mostly dry on the inside walls in spite of the leak. No hum of gas, which is a safe sign. I feel the nen leave my core, ooze out my palm, guided up by my fingertips.

10gs is a minuscule yield and it's already high enough. He glimpses my face but when I start my countdown, he turns unblinkingly to the pipe.

"Three, two, one."

A tiny explosion, in my perspective, but it clamors like a severe gunshot in the chamber. Smoke thinly curls along the wall from the new hole the size of two fingers pressed together in the pipeline.

Commotion at the door, a furious jimmy at the doorknob, voices antagonize each other, and then a defeated grunt before it's calm again.

_Under no circumstances are any of you allowed to come back in until I open the door._

_An order from Danchou is absolute._

My footsteps patter on the stone as I return to my crate.

"Amazing," he says and I read no effort from him to charm me. He's sincere in his regards.

He sweeps his royal purple coat and unveils a book. A red book with a black spine, cursive lettering I can't read, but most peculiar is the handprint, the color of bone.

"An explosive ability. Do you conjure or emit?"

"My nen mimics the properties of TNT. I've mostly concentrated it into my hands so it works best if I touch something or someone with my bare skin. The longer I can hold it, the stronger the yield. If it meets the requirements, it explodes after a delay."

"You didn't meet a requirement with my friend and you let go too soon. So unless you know emission, you would have to touch my friend's wrist again to detonate," he says. "Pardon this question, but why not use your ability instead of fishing for explosives in the hot sun?"

Part of me wants to relax. He can be very charming.

"There are thousands of mines in that field. Those would get me more than enough money," I say before I bite my tongue.

If he notices my slip, he ignores it. "How do you know how many are out there?"

No one has ever asked me how I know the exact number. Maybe they always assumed it is some off the cuff figure I pulled from nowhere. "I hear them. They whistle."

"I was given an explosive ability once," he says. "From an elder of Meteor City. Do you care to see the page where it's documented?"

Giving people abilities. I've never heard of that one before.

He holds out the book and sunlight washes over the bone-colored handprint, beckoning me to touch. I see blanched bones in the jungle soot.

Again, the chill of foreboding at my neck but more urgent than before. A sense of dread grips me and I freeze, unable to move. "Wallahae," I say to soothe it and fight it while extending my arm—

Faster than my utmost abilities to see and detect, my fingers are caught in his hand before I touch the book.

"What was that you said?" he asks, his voice hardly above a whisper.

The faster leak of water along the wall.

"Wallahae, a prayer," I say.

He shut his eyes with a cynical smile. "How did I not see it before?"

Unease slithers from my neck and coils on my spine. I'm missing something, something crucial.

"Nanashi, that isn't your real name, is it?"

The name Fazier called me.

"What is your real name?" he asks.

"Safra. Safra Jung," I say and I feel a gust of wind, opening a dusty cupboard, releasing it to the open air.

"What kind of a name is that?"

"Gortese."

"Which Gortese?" he asks.

Technically there is only one type of ethnic Gortese, but I understand his question. "Didn't Blondie and Collar tell you where I'm from?"

His turn to be silent. They haven't told him. Maybe they didn't believe me or thought that information was important or had it just slipped their minds? Why is that information important here and now?

"The Republic of East Gorteau," I say firmly, even a little proud. But the moment soon evaporates like Collar's steam.

I am too exposed. My hands are naked, he knows my name, my nationality, my ability and I can't place how he had willed those precious secrets out of me.

"What is your name?" I ask.

"Chrollo Lucilfer," he says. Call it clairvoyance, but the name evokes  _power,_  robust and revered even though I reckon, few people really know him by his true name. I don't doubt for a second that it's his real name. It's woven into the fibers of his being, in his cross tattoo, his translucent skin, the heavy drape of his coat, his hand-print book.

I rip away from his grasp. "If you're connected to the police in any way, you're not taking me back alive. I'll just kill myself." Three seconds, a tap at my neck and a  _wallahae_ at my lips is all I need.

His gaze is fixed on me like I am the most interesting person in the universe, like I am the only real thing in the universe. Our eyes are the same color, but his exude intensity, complexity that allures the imagination. Why can't mine do that? Bore into you and beguile you.

"Do you know anything about Meteor City?" he asks.

It's a junkyard of putrid hell. "Nothing," I say.

"We are a dot in the desert. A dumping ground for anything and anyone. Ten million people of different origins, some born here, some dumped here and some arriving to find meaning. The only rule of law, the only mantra: we reject no one, so don't take anything from us. You have  _given_  to Meteor City, disarming those mines. You are free here, and I, nor anyone else will take that away from you. We do not reject you and will not take anything from you."

Something deep, profound moves within me, a certainty that this very moment would mark a turning point in my life forever. Free. Free at last?

Is it really his good looks or am I astounded by something greater? Enthralled by this new presence that had ascended beyond the bounds of humanity. He and his Phantom Troupe. Their speed, agility, instinctual prowess, durability, it's incomprehensible. In EG, I'd met only one elder who was a nen user and who didn't have the lifespan left to teach me basic concepts. She'd gloat about her youth and her immense capabilities. Her words hadn't reached me then, but upon seeing this  _danchou_ and his people, I wonder. I'm baffled and in utter awe of him and his troupe. I'm a mere human, humbled by encountering a different species.

They were right. I am puny compared to these titans.

"What are you people?" I ask finally. I mean it physically, abstractly, conceptually.

I don't know what to expect but he smiles and boils it down to two words that made him swell. His aura, ambiguous, changed, inspirited with something greater than even himself. "The spider."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epithets galore in this chapter. Don't worry, Safra will learn their all their names soon. The longest chapter yet. What can I say? I love writing the Phantom Troupe. Hope everyone doesn't mind the length (it would have been a lot shorter if I didn't wax lyrically about Chrollo's looks for ages...)
> 
> The concept of mien (面) in Gortese or men in Japanese focuses on the health and strength of the mind, meditation, inner peace and helps defend against mental attacks. It is not canon and something I came up with for this fic. I figure different schools of nen conception in different corners of the world would have their own spin on things and develop some of their own techniques. Men (面) is the Japanese word for face, mask, face guard for Kendo and it seemed appropriate, has a nice ring to it don't ya think? Another thing about Safra is that she isn't very good with her nen concepts in part because she only knows the words in Gortese and her master didn't have much time to teach her.


	6. Fables x Spider x Gout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fable written is my relay of a real short story from Jean de La Fountaine called Gout and the Spider. Back in old days Gout (inflammatory joints and arthritis) was personified as a small hand-sized demon with claws and sharp devil's tail.

 

_The Spider_ _…_

When Abiji tests my nen type and sees my ability, the frail woman, who often spoke softer than a wing flutter of a butterfly,  _laughs_. She belly-laughs so hard she is easily heard over the tangential monsoon rains outside and the entire division turns to us in their bunks. "A gout of an ability," she says with moist eyes.

Old Gortese superstition and fable. Inflamed toe joints were said to be caused by a demon,  _gout._ The demon's fangs would pierce the skin, taint the blood with acid that would crystallize and infect joints. Before I could tease her for showing her age, I remember the similar characteristic of TNT. It also begins as an acid that crystallizes to then cause the body pain as it tore joints apart. It irks me but I stand on no ground to argue.

"A fitting fable," I say.

* * *

In the chamber, with Chrollo, I recall the whole fable.

_Gout and her sister, Spider, were said to be born in Hell. One day, off their parents sent them to plague mankind in their chosen abodes: Spider to weave her mesh in an immaculate drawing room in a bureaucrat_ _'s home and Gout to the countryside to settle on a peasant's limbs. Spider hadn't accounted for the maid's daily sweep and Gout was never given the peace needed from the busy farmer to fester. Starving Spider found despairing Gout. "How are you faring, sister?"_

" _Not well at all! This is no life for me," said Gout. "And you, sister?"_

" _I am no better._ _Every day I spin afresh, but no matter how strong the ply, the maid's duster wins and I catch no flies," said Spider. "What occurs in your quarters?"_

" _The busy peasant is always milking cows, axing logs, and raking his crops. Dawn to dusk working his muscles, and gives me no rest to grow," said Gout._

_Together they pondered when an idea struck Spider on a gust of wind._

" _C_ _ome with me to my place and grow strong there," said Spider. "Gnaw on the bureaucrat who uses his brain and not his muscles."_

" _Then I'll take you to my peasant's place. Weave your twine there," said Gout. "Many flies there to snare and not a maid's broom in miles to cast you away."_

_Off they went, the infernal sisters, and prosper they did. Gout was since then always found among the wealthy and well-fed and never again interrupted in her dark, quiet corners, Spider was always weaving her web. These infernal sisters flourish until the crack of doom._

But that is just a fable and I'm not very superstitious, I tell myself, my ghost eyes on Chrollo's ghost eyes as he shares the Spider with me in his chosen abode.

* * *

"We are thieves. We steal," he says as the simple answer that should encompass all.

The cold mood thaws with time and the small space between our crates doesn't feel forced or manipulated on his behalf. Sand patters against the cathedral walls and soft bells chime in the tower above. A very real reality of the desert, despite rare rainstorms, are the frequent sandstorms. Meteor City continues like a stubborn beast fighting the strong pressure gusts, but the few strong storms, better to be called 'Sand Hurricanes' bring the city to a standstill. I had nothing to prove so I never ventured out when a storm was in the forecast. I'd watch the granular rain through the window, blanketing the entire city with a skin of dust the color of storm clouds. Meteor City builds upwards and it took my first Sand Hurricane to learn why: the surge of sand that seemed to eat the vacant ground level of buildings. When it was Fazier's turn in his building to sweep the sand, he gave me the shovel to clear the path, "Welcome to Meteor City" he had said.

I was treated to some Phantom Troupe archeology. Turns out the ghost voices were right. It was in this chamber where the first thoughts of the Troupe were conceived. The Mafia has  _complicated_ relations with Meteor City. They prefer to recruit from Meteor City because record keeping is nonexistent and it doesn't share with the outside world. The Mafia builds gangs and syndicates full of people that, according to the outside world, do not exist. The bosses, searching for foot soldiers, promise grandiose destinations, money, and prestige. For many of the most unfortunate, it's the only realistic route out of Meteor City. 

The Phantom Troupe had begun with nine members, Chrollo and eight others. He was elected as the leader or the 'head' of the spider but he implemented the philosophy that the spider itself was far more important than the head. It was up to them to find more members so the spider, so if a leg or even the head was lost, the spider would be immortal.

"Have you lost any members?" I ask. The question sounds ruder spoken than it did in my head.

He only half shakes his head as if he could jinx it. "We haven't lost any."

The word  _yet_ sours the air but neither I nor he calls attention to it.

Eight legs of a spider plus the head formed the Phantom Troupe. There are currently ten members, but they originally began with nine members. So they haven't lost any members, but they have gained a member. When I asked if it would keep growing forever, he said he had settled on the magic number of thirteen, no more no less. One head and twelve legs.

"Where I come from," I say. "Spiders only have eight legs."

He smiles.

Oh please don't tell me that spiders in Meteor City have twelve legs. I can live the rest of my life happily ignorant of that crawly fact.

He unveils his book again from under his coat and a foreboding chill at my neck again. The book I almost touched evaporates in his hand, which I know that means it's a conjured item. He must be a conjurer.

Again, since he is so close, he can't miss how my expression tenses and he's smart enough to guess what I'm about to ask.

If there is one thing Abiji taught me thoroughly, it's  _mien_ 面. It allows you to feel your surroundings breathe and to be alert when your surrounding's breath hitches. There was a clear undeniable hitch when he caught my hand. It wasn't just the cosmic foreboding, but now my instincts that have kept me alive all this time  _will not let it go._

"Can you explain to me what that conjured book is?" I ask. "Since I told you about my ability, you should tell me yours. Only fair, don't you think?"

He shuts his eyes with a peaceful expression—he has a knack for doing that when he reaches a conclusion I notice. He extends his arm and I really feel his nen for the second time. A velvety aura with omnipresence that whispers around you. The book seems to fabricate from the very air surrounding his hand. A tome, rather than a book. It looks heavy, but when his hand falls open, the book gives light as a feather to its master. The pages flip, turned by as if by wind.

A bare page and then another page, seeming at random. But I see 红花. My name is there, written in old Gortese kanji. My blood turns cold. What is my name doing on that page? The black typography is immaculate as if typed by a machine, yet even if Chrollo has perfect penmanship, when could he have had the time or the dexterity to write my name in his book without my noticing? The rest of the excerpt is in Japanese and my kanji is super rusty but they're my words. Words I uttered when I explained my ability. Word for word, everything I uttered is printed there on the page.

_We are thieves. We steal,_ his voice echoes in my mind so clearly I almost believe he spoke them again. Their significance, his ploy, his ability, it avalanches on me. The skin of the back of my neck prickles. Before I can even think of what to say, the words on the page, so perfectly printed and dark, vanish. Poof, gone, erased by unseen forces. I blink rapidly and rub my eyes, making certain my own vision wasn't fooling me. Black ink, clean brush strokes, leave the page unmarred as if it were never touched.

I and my words disappear without a trace from Chrollo's conjured book. Once again, I am traceless in Meteor City.

"The hour is gone," he says. A well-timed low  _bom_  from the bell tower above us by a squall of sand. More fables pop into my head.  _Tis now struck twelve_ and a deadline has passed.

When words no longer fail me, I murmur, "You can steal my ability."

Guided by the magnetic focal point of his cross tattoo, I finally meet eyes with him again. His smile remains. He's caught red-handed (book-handed) but instead of smattering his innocence, he  _relishes_  it.

"I nearly did. As a precaution. To protect my friend in case you refused to take off your nen from his arm."

I lean back on my crate and gaze into the expanse of geometric patterns high above me. The sandy winds whirl outside, fitting for the racing pace of my heart. "I can't believe what I'm hearing. You can steal my ability.  _Why didn_ _'t you say so?_ "

"What was that?" Even what was sure to surprise him, Chrollo endured it smoothly.

I touch my hands to my cheeks, covering my open mouth smile (a habit of good, modest Gortese girls). Don't squeal. Don't squeal.  _Wallahae, do not squeal._

I remember to breathe, but it sounds like a pained wail. I wanna ask again before getting  _too_ excited. "Can you really take my ability? Wait, would you only mimic it or you actually steal it? I would not be able to use it anymore?"

"You wouldn't be able to use it anymore," he says with clear syllables and maybe he's worried I misunderstood.

"Anymore? Never ever?" I ask yet again because it's too good to be true.

"Never," he says, unblinkingly, calculating while trained on me.

My heart races so fast I'm a hummingbird. Life without explosive nen. I indulge the thought and dream beyond my wildest dreams. It is every East Gortese holiday, with fireworks, a ten-course feast with aromatic curry rice, giant crab claws, spicy lemongrass soup, with a dessert of icy cold sweet acorn jelly. My mouth salivates and I touch my lips to check if I'm literally drooling. I'm still dehydrated, hungry but I could sprint for joy all the way to the north pole right now.

I am not Gout. Gout is my ability and I am its poor victim. I may soon be free of it. Free at last.

I should be savoring this moment in my verbal standoff with Chrollo. Add a +1 to my side of the scoreboard. He nearly tricked me and stole my ability without my knowing. He expected me to be offended, stomping in anger, screaming at him, or frozen stiff in disbelief. Instead, I want to believe so bad that my nightmare is over. I know how brilliant minds like his work. He must have factored for every conceivable scenario and this was my stainless steel wrench thrown into his mental gears.

"You could honestly take this cursed ability off me?" It's too good to be true. This Chrollo must be an exorcist of some sort. What is thieving nen if not an exorcism? Ready to take this damn demon out and send it back to Hell. "What do you need to fulfill all the conditions? Name them and I'll be more than happy to cooperate."

"You want me to take your ability?" he asks cautiously. Probably thinks I'm joking and this is all for shock value.

"Take it  _now,_ " I say. "I don't like my ability. As I showed you—" I gesture to the holes in the pipe that resembled bullet holes—"My ability is destructive and it doesn't suit me at all."

He must have questions. The ones someone would naturally ask. I can already hear him.  _How could you hate your own nen ability? What were you thinking when you chose your ability?_

People configure their nen ability themselves. They may be guided by a mentor, but nen is, at its core, a personal endeavor. Jack of all trades doesn't work with nen abilities. You forge a path and master it. You spend time cultivating an ability by searching within yourself, through self-awareness, with honesty of your limitations, diligence, sweat, and creativity you build a  _you_ expressed in nen form. Abiji had a beautiful nen ability. Chrollo, despite the thievery, his ability is beautiful. The book he conjures, I picture the magical spell books from stories I read as a kid. Mine? No romantic ideation and I shudder to think of that ability as an expression of  _me_.

"Please explain," he says calmly. For all my excitement, his calm disposition roots me in reality much to my appreciation. This is a confusing and sincere outpour of information, after my stubborn silence for weeks. Using Japanese slows me down a bit and I still run out of breath trying to lay out my head and guts on the table.

"Look," I say, "It's a long story but my relationship with nen and nen mastery is complicated. My aura nodes were opened by force and I didn't have a lot of time with a master. I'm not joking but begging you. If you have the power to take this ability literally off my hands,  _take it_."

"You really mean it," he says, not a question.

I peer down at my naked hands that are missing a protective layer. These hands have climbed to great heights on white palms, stirred whirlpools into EG's ocean water, swelled three times in size when I was bitten by a Balsa Constrictor and carried Huan every day before he got a mobility chair. They have disarmed the mines in the 79th meridian when I defected and my writing hand had endured Blondie's torment. I could flex my fingers slightly though my skin still resembled a ripe plum.

"If I didn't have to wear gloves because I'm worried about causing an accidental explosion I'd be so much happier," I say.

"Are the gloves a restriction you set?" he asks.

I remember Abiji and her lecture on restrictions and how they can make abilities stronger. I've never thought of gloves as restrictions as much as a safety blanket. "Possibly. Not on purpose.  _Nothing about my nen was on purpose._  I've never gotten it to work with gloves on."

"I will not be taking your ability," he says and I wilt like a chrysanthemum.

"Why not? Is it because you're a thief? Is it a condition that I can't consent to it?" I ask. Then I dare to taunt him. "Or is it pettier than that? Because I'm  _giving_ it to you, if you can't steal it, you don't want it anymore?"

The wide-eyed surprise leaves his face but he snorts, thrilled by my taunt, but not taking the bait.

"It's not a condition, but my ability has its disadvantages. I can steal your nen ability and yield it as if it were my own creation. That said, I cannot steal your knowledge of the land mines, nor do I trust myself to find those remaining land mines. Again, it was a precautionary measure. If you were stubborn and if I believed you wouldn't remove the nen from my friend's hand, I could do it myself."

It's a solid explanation, but it's a half-truth. When someone speaks but you experience the uneven sensation of standing slightly off-center. I believe he wants to guarantee Blondie's safety but there's something else because we hadn't even mentioned the disposal of my nen from Blondie's wrist. What had stopped him in the first place? When I said  _wallahae,_ when I spoke Gortese that compelled him to ask my name and nationality.

"But what did my being Gortese have to do with—" My stomach then decides to roar like a starved beast, effectively killing any chance I had to sound intimidating.

Another smile from his stupid perfect face, this time clearly at my expense. I take my +1 away from my end of the scoreboard.

"I'll send you back to your room once you remove the nen from my friend's hand," he says. We are so close when he stands I get a perfect view of his sculpted chest and his washboard abdomen. More self-conscious prickles at the back of my neck and warmth in my cheeks. I don't  _think_ he's doing this on purpose. If he were a Gortese man, supposed to be conditioned by a culture of modesty, I would interpret him as egregious and douchey. He's not Gortese and I'm not well-equipped to read him. I roll my eyes away after staring for a second too long and he finally walks away.

"Taking off your nen from his wrist won't be a problem, right?" he asks, his voice calling me from behind as he approaches the door and I blink to scatter my train of thought.

Oh, taking off nen should be as simple as taking off a shoe right? Um.

"I'll open the door and bring him in."

Um. "About that…well." Japanese makes it so much harder so I go ahead and utter it in the simplest and only way I know. "I've never done it before."

"One more time." His boot-steps halt some distance behind me.

"Well, I've never done it  _successfully_ before."  _Wallahae_ , that's cringe-inducing. He swears he could take abilities from others at will and master them while I, less than an amateur, can barely use my own ability.

"Never done it before?" His voice still distant turns in my direction again and I reluctantly stand and turn as well.

"I've never taken back nen after sticking it to something or someone and I don't know how."

"I see." He holds his chin to calculate. "Is it on a timer?"

"No. If it were it would have detonated by now."

"Will it just stay on his hand?"

"I have to trigger it so yes it will."

Hand still cupped his chin, he thinks.

This wasn't part of the plan, was it?

"I can try—" I offer but he interrupts.

"Maybe we ought to leave it for now. I can let you return to your chamber and rest."

I feel a little bad. Not for Blondie but for the fact that I have never successfully extracted my own nen. I should know how. I could blow up this entire cathedral, obliterate the stained glass, the stone and everyone inside but I do not know how to safely take my nen off Blondie's wrist. My sinking gut says that they're not planning on letting me go until I figure out  _how._

A hand, his hand, gently squeezes my shoulder. I tense on reflex despite the comforting gesture. There's firmness to him, a hidden strength, but he knows the right amount of pressure the situation warrants to be soothing. How bold is he? I'm in awe of it. Touching my shoulder when my hands are bare. He is mega fast but he is showing so much skin. It wouldn't require more than a second and an outstretched arm to fatally wound him. He was vulnerable before when he told me his ability without heed. Why display such overt vulnerability? To show off how confident he is? No, that's not what I sense. This is something more innocent and fragile. Is he showing that he is willing to trust me?

I touch his chalk-white hand with my bare plum of a hand. Am I right or have I sealed my fate? There's a clammy quiver in mine and for the life of me, I can't remember the last time I held someone else's hand. (No, Blondie doesn't count). Chrollo doesn't flinch, loosen or tighten his grip on my shoulder. His face is as smooth as stone without a fault of stress or uncertainty. His breathing is calm though I'm more nervous than him, I try to match his tranquil rhythm.

"How do you feel?" he asks, the question bigger than its mere four words.

Honestly? In the grand scheme of me as a physically and emotionally healthy human being? I have one goal but am being crushed by a world so unfathomably larger than me. "Not well at all."

"Why don't you stay in this place for a while?" he asks softly, so soft I think of Abiji's sweet voice.

Me? Stay here?

"You taking care of the landmines is a dire help to us and in return, the Spider can soothe your anxieties around your nen ability. So you and your ability can flourish."

Flourish? An ability I have only ever wanted to squash should flourish? He sees a way it could flourish?

"You might as well stay at least during the sandstorm." He adds, relieving me of the urgency to answer immediately.

I understand why he became the head of the Spider. They elected him not because of power or presence, but because they trusted him. I let down the last of my guard with a deep exhale after cutting a tight bind on my chest. He has some of the most critical pieces of me and who I am. I feared such a vulnerable moment and yet I'm willing to trust him.

"Are you sure you don't want to take it?" I try one last time with cynical humor. "Someday down the road, you're not going to stick out your conjured book and press my palm to the book's palm?"

His hand squeezes under mine the tiniest bit more. In his eyes, I see notes of melancholy. "It is better in your hands than in mine. I believe in time you will learn to see your ability, not as a curse, but a gift."

_Stay in this chosen abode so you can flourish._

Maybe I am superstitious. I slowly withdraw my hand and Chrollo also withdraws his own as we stand without witness in the cathedral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please pardon this chapter being a little late. I first intended to skim through this part to get to write more troupe moments but the muse wouldn't budge and this scene became its own chapter. I don't think Chrollo has ever faced someone who was happy at the thought of him stealing their ability. And her very off the cuff reaction was the cherry-on-top for his decision to ask her to stay. She's plenty weird enough to handle and mesh with the troupe right? I hope the fable makes sense. Safra read many stories as a kid and I couldn't help but throw that one into the beginning of this chapter. Her past with short stories will bubble up again later in the story.
> 
> THANK YOU to YukiMorow for commenting! I too have sat and binged on NK documentaries. A friend of mine from uni gave me a few books on the subject years ago and I've been intrigued with the country ever since. And thank you, guests, for all the kudos <3 
> 
> By all means, tell me if I'm wrong, but I can't recall anyone from canon outright hating their ability like she does. But everyone has something they dislike about themselves and Chrollo thinks she can be swayed otherwise if she can learn to control it. So someone in the troupe is gonna teach her. Any guesses of who will do the honors? A hint is that it will be someone in her nen category. See you all on the next chapter and I hope this one was worth the wait!


	7. Fears x Feitan x Phinks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even during the short walk back to her room, Feitan and Phinks can't resist from trying to get a rise out of Safra.

 

I am introduced to the Phantom Troupe as Safra Jung.

鄭 红花 in Old Gortese kanji.

As Gortese, our myths say we descended from demi-gods, but Safra was a name reserved for a real god. Not just any god but the bringer of light to Earth, to all that is seen and all that will be. Adorned on her head she dared to wear a gold crown even more ornate than the King's and every strand of her hair glowed like wisps of flame. It was by her light that the King conquered the three realms. But she was a spiteful goddess.

When the King snubbed her after his victory, she expelled him from his throne.  _By what authority of yours_  he decried and she banished him from the light. He'd wallow in darkness for eternity. When asked if she would take the throne she declined and said,  _what power would I gain that I don't already have?_

When asked if she would grant the throne to another of her kind, she spurned them all. Out of spite, she chose a mere mortal and deemed the first Gortese Emperor worthy to rule the lands of mortals. She chose him as her first husband and from her body, came Gortese people. Again, as the myths say.

Literary terms, Safra means the color harmony in the sunrise. The vibrant reds, oranges, yellows that bedeck the sky after the world had plunged into darkness. It means beacon, the flash that stings your eyes at the end of the tunnel. That no matter how difficult, darkness never lasts forever. It means the moment you awaken, awash in pure sunlight, and you take a blissful breath thanking the world you are alive. It's uttered in many Gortese songs, poems, as a metaphor for endurance and the beauty that stubbornly blossoms even in turmoil. We will  _see Safra_  on the end of this arduous famine if only she deems us worthy, Gortese people used to say during the famine of my youth.  _Safra is such a Gortese name_.

When I was born with my full head of copper hair and gray eyes my mother knew that for the rest of my life, I would hear remarks about how non-Gortese I looked. So she named me one of the oldest, most Gortese girl names in existence to assert my heritage forever and always. It is an ambitious name to give to a child, a tall order full of expectations for a half-blind bundle of screaming joy. It's risky, like naming your child  _beautiful_ when they could grow up looking like Quasimodo. Apparently, my grandmother and mother had decided on a more dainty name for the second daughter. But when I arrived, hair the color of 'sun rays' after what had been a difficult pregnancy for her, my often whimsical mother named me after grandiose morning twilight who rebuffed authority.

If my mom thought I was a pain in the ass to raise, she only had herself to blame. Plain and easy to contain like the ideal Gortese girl, I could never be.

I face the ten PT members and I can't even begin to reduce into words what the name from my late Gortese mother means to me. I hear Chrollo kindly try to say my name but with a hard stop at the  _f_ when you're supposed to blend it all together like a gentle ocean wave that softly crests in the middle. It affects nothing in the ten.

My name means nothing in Meteor City.

"It sounds like the word for 'sunflower oil'," says Blondie. And just like that, the intricate tapestry of my name is unraveled by the tiniest snip.

* * *

The exiled nine file back in with less fanfare than when they exited. Instead of glaring daggers (and gnashing their teeth) at me, they see Chrollo's poised, contemplative expression and are seemingly calmed by him. Even with less tension, their auras pool into the chamber and I am a penny in their midst.

Shalnark thumbs his phone and says, "Must have been interesting. Talked for more than an hour, ne?"

 _The hour is gone,_ I remember Chrollo saying. That one hour exhausted me more than the several hours I lay awaiting someone to come to my room and dispose of me or the full days I spent in the junkyard, searching for land mines.

Machi surveys the chamber before pointing to the trickle of water from the pipe with a glacial blue eye curiously on me. "Is that your doing?"

Before I can think to answer, Chrollo interrupts.

"For now, she's going to rest in her room until the sandstorm passes," he says.

"Wait," I say, pressing my palm to my bare neck. "What about my things that were on me? My wrench, my map, and most importantly my chain."

"Those will be returned to you," says Chrollo.

I take it upon myself, as a placating gesture to everyone, to wear Feitan's gloves again. My left hand is no problem, but working my fingers through the grooves of Feitan's heavy gloves agitates shooting pains in every joint.

"Don't you need those off to remove the nen from Phinks' wrist?" asks Pakunoda. I notice her revolver isn't conspicuously held in her hand at the moment.

Once again, Chrollo saves me from needing to answer.

"We'll sort that out later," he says. There is a distinct  _but why_ lingering in the air, but coming from him, they don't ask for clarification. "For now please take her back to her room, Phinks."

The cascade of cracking knuckles behind me makes me sigh.

Blondie (named Phinks— _Don_ _'t worry, I think your name is dumb too_ ) once again spares me no dignity as he grips my upper arms and hoists me up with no effort to transport me back to my room. He's not as large as Uvogin but his grip is like the jaws of a construction crane.

I'm weighed down by Feitan's gloves, which I wear strictly as a precaution. At least they don't itch like wool without the heavy duty gray tape. Speaking of Feitan he shadows Phinks soundlessly like a shadow himself. After lounging in the high-ceiling chamber for a while, the hall feels almost claustrophobic with the sandy winds whirling only a wall away. Only two auras instead of ten yet those two are giant heat lamps and I'm a plant in a greenhouse.

Phinks holds me, my back towards him, while I face the hall and still the heavy reek of burned tar and tobacco punches me square in the nose. He smells like he demolished a whole pack while waiting for his Danchou to open the door.

My dad used to smoke a lot too. All Gortese people used to smoke a lot because it suppresses the appetite. Mother hated it that dad smoked and always roasted him when she saw the hand-rolled stick between his fingers. It soon became a habit of shame that he would succumb to in a fit of frustration or, after she passed, long empty nights when he missed her. I wonder what's the trigger for Phinks. Frustration or emptiness or something else entirely?

A groan from Phinks after another heavy gust of wind outside, squashing any possible hopes of his that I could leave sooner than later. His offense still floors me. The smarter, more survival savvy side of me begs me to not utter a meep but I try anyway. "I can walk," I say, calmly as I can muster while being pinched. "Put me down and I'll walk the rest of the way to my room."

A tighter pinch at my shoulders speaks his negation to my request better than words. The pain drills all the way down to my dangling feet and I damn my shortness.

Again, my smarter side orders me to just grind my teeth and bear it for the rest of the way. But I try one more time. "Just let me walk. It really hurts and it's uncomfortable."

"Like I care," says Phinks.

The sand cakes like mud against the thick glass window, making the time of day seem later than it probably is. "What time is it?" I ask and it seemingly falls on deaf ears. My throat is dry and my stomach is churning like a pacing beast waiting to eat. Fine, I'll talk to myself. The day feels super long because I didn't get to see the sun go down yesterday. "I feel like I've been stuck here for three days."

"Twenty-three hours," says Feitan with exasperation as if he were counting every annoying minute of my unwelcome presence. Excuse me, but I didn't drag myself in here.

Is that all? I wanna say with exasperation too. Probably the only thing I'll ever agree with these two.

I lift my awkward crab hands, my focus naturally gravitating to the red and white skull on Feitan's collar. "Do you need these back? Since they're yours?"

Phinks' tone changes when he speaks to Feitan. "She doesn't get it does she?" So that's how he sounds when he's not barking at me.

"Impossible, ne?" says Feitan before nudging his head in my direction again. "You think because you spoke with Danchou that you're safe."

"What are you saying? That Chrollo is wrong and that I fooled him?"

Feitan's face already rests in a slightly irritated expression so all it takes is the slightest narrowing of eyes to change to menacing. " _I won_ _'t forgive that_ ," says Feitan.

Phinks' fingers bite into my robe and biceps like teeth and I pathetically squirm. "Who the fuck are you?"

"You don't get to call him by his first name," says Feitan.

I get it. I get it. It's a disrespectful call-out to their leader and it's a Japanese faux pas to refer to a stranger directly by their first name.

The pain thunders in my shoulders but in his vice grip, I can't even manage to close my hands into fists.

"Fine," I relent. "The Danchou of the Spider. He introduced himself by his first name when he told me about the Spider."

The two pause and all I hear are the sandy winds outside. Feitan's gaze is above me, at Phinks and the shift in atmosphere is palpable. Heat in the hall, but not the sticky humid natural heat, but like the concentrated blow of an oven. No killing intent radiates with Feitan's heat, only deliberation. Like how I can feel steam out of my ears when I'm thinking too hard.

I don't use  _mien_  but even uttered words would be redundant because their questions are obvious.  _What is Danchou thinking? What does he see in her?_

And for the second time, I find myself in agreement with the two. Why is Danchou interested in me enough to keep me around? The heck if I know. He thinks my ability can flourish but why does he care in the first place? What is in it  _for him_? If it were only my ability, he would have snatched it, done deal.  _Stay at least for the sandstorm_  is a cover to ask for more time obviously. The Phantom Troupe don't ring me as the accommodating type. They would throw someone out into the sandstorm if they so fancy. So why does Chrollo need more time?

Now  _I_ can feel the steam puffing from my ears.

"What's going to happen to me?" I ask on a whim but I know better than to expect an answer. "You know him. What does he want? The only thing I know is that he wants me to keep my ability."

"How do you reckon that?" asks Feitan.

"Because he tried to steal my ability. To save you, Blondie, but he changed his mind. Said my ability is better in my hands."

Silence save for the winds at the wall, which to me sound downright tepid compared to before.

"Did you use your mental ability to pluck that from his head?" asks Feitan.

"That's not what  _mien_  is. It's not clairvoyance."

Scratch that. For most schmucks like me,  _mien_  will never be more than meditation and sensing surroundings. Abiji had developed her abilities and concepts so that she  _could_ use  _mien_  to mind read. But she was in a godly tier, a level I'd have to sell my soul to reach. She was a true nen-user, a nen- _master_. Her teachers had birthed the concept of  _mien_  and she nurtured it, discovering peaks even the concept's creator hadn't fathomed. She's why I don't feel comfortable calling myself a nen-user. I and my poor nen skills are simply unworthy.

"He told me, out of free will," I say. "If I could read minds, I wouldn't be asking you two." If I were a praise-starved person, I'd indulge their misconception that I was so powerful. Again, that would falsely put me in the same ranks as Abiji and I respect her too much.

I can't see Phinks' gaze at Feitan, but in the same way you can feel someone staring at you from behind, I can feel his intensity.

Phinks' loosens his grip ever so slightly and my soles touch the stone. He still grips my shoulders but I'll take that over dangling like a carcass on a meat hook.  _Still in one piece_  I say to myself and take slow, calm breaths. My survival side rejoices. Something in my exchange was the right thing to say. The pace of my heart just begins to tee off when I notice Feitan studying me with narrowed eyes over the brim of his collar.

"Question." Phinks nudges me to get my attention and he asks with a quiet dreading sigh. "Did Danchou talk about the legs of the Spider?"

Feitan shuts his eyes, what I feel is a brace for impact.

I say the most inoffensive thing I can think of on the spot, "How his Spider only has eight legs but will have twelve someday once he finds more members."

I still struggle to picture a spider with twelve legs instead of the standard eight.

Though Chrollo never mentioned in Meteor City if Spiders naturally had twelve instead of eight…I shake my head, scrubbing the mental image of big, hairy spiders with. Too. Many. Legs.

Feitan snits and his hands bundle in his pockets, wringing the lining fabric of his robe. Standing so close to Phinks, I feel the deep snarl reverberate in his chest. A crack of his fingers as he jolts me up again off my feet.

What in the world set them off  _now?_  I wriggle to fight his hold but a firm squeeze kills the urge. My survival side warns me to watch my temper but I snarl, damn it.

"Quiet," says Phinks.

"I'll walk to my room. Put me down!" I try to stare Phinks down but I'm already a pipsqueak compared to him and from this angle, I can't catch his eyes.

Phinks doesn't listen, doesn't so much as twitch but Feitan approaches a single pace.

"Yada, we're doing something wrong because someone is still not scared." His downturned brows sink even deeper.

"Scared? Of  _what_?" I snap, my temper flaring. My survival instincts throw hands up in the air.  _Blast it! I_ _'m about to give up. Are you *trying* to get yourself killed?!_

"You should be terrified by now," he says.

"I am very uncomfortable," I say, steadying my whole body. "But I am not scared."

"Then  _what_  scares you?" Feitan's sibilant voice reminds me of the giant hirsute Pig-Eater Tarantulas in Gorteau, also _affectionately_  known as the Smiling Spiders. They rarely attacked humans, but they would hiss at humans with a fanged smile, a face only an infernal creature could love. I have yet to see the mysterious bottom half of Feitan's face, but the infernal glint in his dark eyes is plenty for me. The shadows darken under his eyes with the same bloodthirsty delight when he uttered  _A Farewell to Arms_  with nen smoldering at his hand. It's not a question at all, but a challenge:  _What will it take to petrify you, Safra?_

"We spent the hour thinking," he continues. "Jump-scares don't get you. Uvogin would have frightened you earlier. Pain doesn't scare you. Pain makes you scream, but pain can make anyone scream. A frightened person would have tried to escape by now. But you sat in your room. Hmmm." Feitan breathes against his high collar.

What scares me? Me? In how children fear monsters, the way adults fear to be judged, unloved and forgotten? Phinks and Feitan did scare me out in the fields. Uvo did when he chomped near my ear. But Feitan doesn't mean circumstantial moments of fear, but the crippling fears. He wants to know if I fear torture and death.

If Feitan ever needed a second gig, he should join my former East Gortese military prison camp. They had an isolated facility for new arrivals who still hadn't admitted to their crimes. There they'd push your buttons to rip apart every last bit of your humanity. They'd break your bones, twist your joints, tear your muscles, yank out your teeth, rip out your hair, drown you in subzero water, anything until you begged for mercy. Bawling and confessing with all your soul that yes you had conspired against the state.

My father taught me the most principled among us, those too proud to steal food, those too dignified to tarnish their name to save themselves from torture, were the first to die. I survived in the land of heaven and hell where the real monsters dwell. These monsters, their torture, they causing my death does not scare me.

I look at Feitan's hooded eyes that can go so easily from droopy and bored to fiendish and malicious.

My survival side announces resignation when I ignore its pleas to not respond. "I don't believe fear is a bad thing. Where I come from, fear keeps you alive. Panic and pride get you killed. When you say scared, you mean you want me to panic, shriek, assume the fetal position, lose all hope, and get ready to die, is that right? Well, I've stayed alive by the sole virtue that I will never go willingly to my death. So you're gonna have to think of something more creative than jump-scares to get a rise out of me, Feitan," I say and it's the first time I utter his name.

I left my true fears in East Gorteau. I fear for two people in this entire world. No more. No less.

My mind is all over the place, Abiji would say right now.  _How can you think straight to save yourself when your mind is in shambles? Focus otherwise your opponents won_ _'t have to lift a finger to tear you to shreds,_ she would say, swatting me on the rounded tip of my nose.

_Inhale, exhale. What are your surroundings? Who is among you? Inhale and exhale. Close your body off and focus. Read your surroundings and your opponents. Even if they don_ _'t utter a single word, they will divulge more in their auras._

Despite the compounding pressure and pain in my shoulders, I imagine they are no longer part of my body. That I barely have a body anymore. My nen is my consciousness.

Like how Chrollo and how his tome yields to his will, the four walls and their auras speak to me.  _They are cross with you, but they cannot kill you. You are at risk of bodily harm, but your life is in no danger._

Phinks' warning gruffs yanks me from my introspection.

"Oi, don't you dare try anything!" gruffs Phinks.

_Exhale._

While I am good at  _mien_  面 I'm no master. Abiji would be able to take double the physical onslaught, shouts from all ten of the PT and not flinch. She'd be able to read all those nen users like she could easily read a children's book.

The wind howls against the wall and I feel my body, my thirst, ten toes and fingers, all my aches awakening like after a long night sleep. Though I wasn't panicking earlier, I am almost tranquil even with Phinks and Feitan eying me then each other. I don't sense any nen signatures to suggest non-verbal communication, it's possible, yet it is also possible they are close enough to consult each other without speaking.

I can't decipher them when they do that, at least not without  _mien._

"Is that the ability she used on Paku?" asks Feitan to confirm with Phinks.

"It's  _not_ an ability," I say. "It's a concept."

"Whatever you call it, don't start any more trouble," says Phinks.

"I didn't start any of this," I say. "You killed my comrade. How about I kill one of your own?"

Phinks digs his fingers, almost splitting muscles apart in my shoulder. I grit my teeth, holding a cry of pain. I get the message: don't threaten shortie.

"One of us? Why? To make it fair?" says Feitan, hands lodged into his pockets, not out, not aimed for my face and not smoldering, which is a good sign. "We don't operate on what's fair to you."

"You broke my hand and wrist," I say.

Phinks flaps his lips. "I would have known if I had broken something."

"Sometimes you don't know your own strength," says Feitan.

"If she wasn't a nen user, she would have lost her hand," says Phinks.

Feitan shuts his eyes as the shadows curtain over his features and I can't decipher how much he buys the explanation. Are they doing their thing again where they talk without speaking?

"Does that mean it was a test, Blondie?"

All he has to do is jab his pinkie fingers into my biceps to deliver his message. Understandably, he isn't fond of his nickname that I had accidentally uttered again.

"I wouldn't speak another word if I were you."

Maybe I am more livid than I thought. I'm antagonizing my captor and he's one flex away from his fingers skewering my flesh like a shish kabob.

"I wouldn't light a cigarette with that arm for a while if I were you," I say, half a warning, half a jab.

Phinks huffs like a teased bull but he sets his jaw.

Feitan slinks in front of us now. A beam of burned yellow light from the window highlights green hues in his hair. It's not crow black like I originally thought, but a deep midnight green as if his tresses were sharp splits of fan palm leaves.

"Feitan," I say, peering  _down_ at someone for a change. I know enough Japanese to notice his grammar mistakes. Or at least he makes some of the mistakes I do. "Where are you from? The way you speak isn't quite like how others talk in Meteor City—"

Before Feitan even acknowledges my question, Phinks digs his fingers in again and I picture the flesh separating from bone. "Don't ask him questions."

"Get it out of your system now," Feitan says to Phinks. "If we're right, you may not be able to snap at her for long."

"Right about  _what?_ " I ask and Phinks enforces his demand that I do not ask Feitan any more questions.

My feet dangle. I could point my toe and still not touch the floor. This is super uncomfortable and at my every fidget from discomfort, his fingers press into my arms. "I can walk, you know?" I say. "I'll go to my room just let me walk on my own feet."

"Make another sound or fidget again and I  _will_  kill you," says Phinks with killing aura radiating off him so thick it could be sliced with a knife and served on bread.

Again, I blame the dehydration and hunger, but something stupid possesses me. Before I think twice, I lift my leg and then whack my heel hard into his shin. No matter how muscular or burly he is, human shins are all thin skin and bone without any muscle or soft fat to protect it from brute force.

He grunts sharply and I wriggle loose from his grasp. I lurch forward almost tumbling, but before the weight sinks into my foot, he captures my right elbow. Why did I think I could do this? I know how fast they are—

My fist clenches so hard the rest of my body shakes. I swing my loose arm to his face with all my might, a blur of red from Feitan's glove. Phinks doesn't blink or flinch. He reacts with precision as if he already foresaw each of my motions. This is all child's play to him. He captures my punch with ease too, with an arrogant whistle. The impact ripples through my arm before stopping in my chest.

My brain catches up. I'm  _still_ dangling. My right elbow in his left hand and my left fist in his right palm. I don't care what my mien said. He's gonna laugh at me, or kill me, or worse, laugh  _while_ killing me—

Phinks sets me down and I can't read what he's about to do next from his deadpan. He pulls on Feitan's glove and my breath hitches in my throat. My perspiring skin feels sticky in the warm hall as the glove slips off.

" _What the hell are you doing_ _—_ _"_

"Make a fist," says Phinks. "Like the one you just threw."

My fingers curl from years of practice into a firm fist.

I look ridiculous, posed with my arm aimed for his cheek. He notices the scar on my middle knuckle, the curl in my arm, the muscles tight in my bicep, my shoulder and hip turned into the swing.

"Who taught you how to punch?"

The portrait of the person plasters my mind but I shake my head. "Not telling."

" _Mah, have it your way._ _"_ He merely flicks Feitan's glove at me but to me, it's like catching a fired missile.

I hit the stone floor right on my tailbone. Despite all my restraint to not squeal earlier, I squeal like a pup from the pain. My vision bubbles from hot tears I immediately blink away.

"Both of you get it out of your system," says Feitan. "You won't be able to later."

I wince as I turn around and face Phinks and Feitan. Feitan, even on the shorter side, can loom over you as if he glowered from great heights.

"Well? Go ahead," says Feitan, hands lodged in his pockets. The veins swell in Phinks' jaw and I keep my pie-hole shut.

I slowly stand watching them, as if it would make any difference. By the time my brain processes them charging and cracking my head like an egg, I'd already be dead. I walk, albeit awkwardly, to my room, trying to mask my pain and embarrassment.

"It's still not too late to accidentally kill her," says Phinks, with humor I reckon.

" _Dahmeh_ , no," says Feitan like he was swatting a child's grabby hand away from a plate of sweets. "If we were going to do it, we should have done it in the fields."

Only when I shut the door do I rub the smarting pain in my tailbone. I heave a heavy sigh and I never imagined I'd be so happy to be back in this dusty room. They, the Phantom Troupe are so exhausting to interact with. Even if Chrollo is bearable (and very pleasant to look at) those two  _alone_ are making me wish I could go and drown myself in the sand.

The sand blasts against the walls as if to say,  _don't even think about it, ya fool._

My survival side knocks with a vengeance and I hear the common voices of authority I disobeyed in my life, the loudest being my mother and elder sister.  _See? This is what happens when you, don_ _'t, listen to the voice of reason._

* * *

The door clicks, locking with a bolt as if that were capable of keeping any of them out.

"You don't think Danchou is going to ask her to join?" asks Phinks.

Feitan had kept his eyes peeled when she divulged some of the details from her talk with Danchou and could not spot a shred of evidence that she was lying. "It seems likely."

"But you saw," says Phinks. "She struggles to use her nen."

"I know," says Feitan with an irked tone of 'you're preaching to the choir'. The mask of nen that surrounded her face like a kendo mask, only visible when they used gyo, is undeniably one of her strongest points. Yet in the fields, her  _ten_ , the most basic of concepts, flickered like a bad light bulb. It was probably luck and spite that she managed to get Phinks' wrist in the way she did.

"You think Danchou knows that?" asks Phinks.

"You think he  _doesn't_  know that?"

"But then what is he thinking?"

Feitan didn't know. "What were  _you_  thinking?"

"Huh? Oh, you mean her punch? I can tell who was taught how to throw a proper punch, is all."

Mr. Hand-to-Hand Combat would appreciate something like that. If given the choice, Feitan would always choose a sword over empty-handed fighting. Though when they were younger, Phinks wouldn't relent in making sure Feitan at least knew the proper techniques to jab, straight punch, curl his arm, body stance, etc.

"And what are you thinking? About the challenge she issued?" asks Phinks.

 _You're gonna have to think of something more creative than jump-scares to get a rise out of me, Feitan._ Whether she meant it as a challenge or not, she doomed herself to learn one of the core principles of the Spider the hard way.

"Do you have to ask?" says Feitan with a sly look of  _you already know where I'm going with this_. "We are thieves. We steal."

"Ahhh." Phinks' chest swelled with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Jah, hurry up and fill me in before we get back to the chamber."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest THANKS YOU to YukiMorow (nice surname btw ;) ) and for all the kudos since the previous update! I love it when a reader comments on things they've noticed or enjoyed about a particular chapter and definitely welcome any comments (criticism included) no matter how short or long :)


	8. Ticking x Half x Pint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Ever so democratic* Danchou puts the decision of whether or not to let Safra join the troupe up for a vote.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A 100% troupe chapter so quick heads up that the following, like the last part of the last chapter with Fei and Phinks, is all in 3rd person pov. Last time it was Feitan, this time Phinks!

 

"Was hauling her out really necessary?" asks Machi, her angular eyes narrowing when Feitan and Phinks return after carting the half-pint to her room.

Neither respond nor acknowledge the criticizing question. They had aired out their concerns in the hall after Safra shut the door.

"That's everyone. Danchou!" blares Uvogin, a low  _bom_  from the steeple bells join his enthusiastic megaphone voice. "You left us waiting for over an hour. I'm dying to know what happens next!"

"Mah mah," shushes Shalnark to rein in Uvo's thrill. "Danchou probably wants to fill us in first before issuing a new round of orders, Uvo."

"What happened Danchou? What was that bang?" asks Pakunoda, the ends of her razor cut hair gracing her pointed chin as she scans the chamber for evidence of the cacophony. "Sounded like a gunshot."

"More like  _ten_  gunshots," snarls Nobunaga, digging into his ear. He checks then flicks away white flaky ear wax. "Big fat mistake to sit by the wall.  _Wriiiiiiii wriiiiii WRIIIIII_ ," he squeaks to mimic the high-pitch buzz. "My freaking ears won't stop ringing.  _Those blasted bells aren't helping._ " He gurgles like a livid horse.

No one told him to literally press his ear against the wall. Phinks had sat away, stewing further down the corridor, steeling his agitated emotions to follow Danchou's orders. When the  _bang!_ shook the whole cathedral, two other hands covered his on the bolted doorknob as Shalnark and Franklin urged him to keep his cool.

"Could-kill-us-all!" He spewed.

"Danchou said not to barge in," said Shalnark. "Under  _any_  circumstances."

Franklin pressed a humongous hand on his chest, but without an ounce of anger or aggression. "The boss knows what he's doing," said Franklin.

"I've been keeping time," said Shalnark, unpocketing his bat-phone. "He must have the conditions fulfilled within the hour. Be patient. He's almost done."

Out-numbered and resigning to follow orders, without another protest Phinks retraced his steps, yanking his feral anger back by its tail.

"Isn't it what you've always wanted? To go out with a  _bang_?" quipped Feitan, draped in black he sat like a misplaced shadow next to him.

"Shut up," Phinks growled.

In the atrium, a few peer around the crates, glance at the walls, the stained glass, even the ceiling, noting a distinct lack of blood and mangled flesh.

Feitan points a long-nail finger at the leaky pipe. "All you have to do is follow the musk of  _burn_ ," he murmurs below Phinks' ear.

So it isn't just him. A caustic blend of metallic and charcoal wafted in the air when Danchou first opened the door as if the atrium released a long held breath.

"So I was right," says Machi, pointing at the leaky pipe, the only visible difference since they filed out. "That  _was_  her doing."

Gray gleams—Omokage's hair undulates as he glides to the wall. He, the puppeteer who always carves every meticulous detail by hand, wants to scrutinize and appreciate the remains and residual nen with his crafter's hands. Formerly beside Paku, he now runs his skinny finger along the two new holes in the pipe along the wall. Water streams along his palm spider tattoo and dampens the delicate cuff of his sleeve.

His pupils all but swallow his black irises, intrigue gripping him as Phinks has seen before, albeit rarely. Their newest member had been with the troupe for just under a year and Phinks still couldn't place a beat on him.

"Some are just eccentric," said Feitan once.

Whatever. The dude is gray. His hair is gray. his cloak is gray, even his skin has a gray sheen.

Omokage rubs soot between his fingers and smears some into his tattoo. "Danchou had her demonstrate her ability, correct?"

"Unless you have another guess about that LOUD bang," says Nobunaga, pinkie shoved in his ear canal. More futile attempts to wiggle out the incessant ringing.

"Matches with what Shalnark and Phinks said, yes?" Omokage pays no mind to his sleeve, circling his blackened fingertip along the perfectly circular detonation points. "Feels cool but still malleable to the touch. Exothermic and fast," he says, finally tearing himself away from the leak to gaze at Danchou. His gaze focuses with such intensity, the uncanny feeling of intruding on something nudges Phinks.

Phinks, never mind, has one beat on Omokage. He never sensed gay-vibes from him (he admittedly wasn't the best judge of this) but the man is definitely enamored with Danchou. In a game of Roulette, Phinks would stack all his chips on that one bet of Omokage being enamored with Danchou. Romantic, admiration of skill, fashion sense, charisma—Phinks had no idea.

"I can confirm," says Danchou. "Her ability is explosive."

Between Nobunaga's teeth comes a sucking sound. " _Sheesh._ Part of me thought her threat to Phinks was a bluff."

"Her nen mimics the properties of explosive TNT, the same type of explosive found in the landmines scattered around the city. It's why she's able to find and unbury them without injury," says Danchou.

"So, she's a transmuter," says Feitan.

 _Pft,_  she would be a pain-in-the-ass-transmuter.

"Judging by what I saw," says Chrollo. "She reads the medium material before refining her nen into detonation points. I considered it a mixed technique, transmutation with emission because she released her nen and detaches entirely for safety. Turns out, she uses a 'count-down' condition. She has to hold, count-down and then it will detonate after a delay. It's why Phinks' arm hasn't detonated. She has to trigger it manually now."

Phinks, miffed, folds his arms.

"So Danchou learned her nen," says Franklin. "To fulfill the conditions of Bandit's Secret."

"Well within the hour," says Shalnark, crawling closer to the question no one had yet asked outright.

"Did Danchou thieve her ability?" asks Omokage.

The million jenni question. One Feitan and Phinks to their chagrin already know the fateful answer.

"No, Omokage," says Danchou, shutting his eyes at the expecting faces. "I did not end up stealing it."

"Did Danchou change his mind?" asks Machi.

"I never really made up my mind to begin with, you could say," says Danchou, obliquely. Perhaps even he didn't understand the workings in his fluid mind. Phinks rolls with it, but he prefers something straightforward. Did Danchou intend to take her ability and set the conditions in motion, if so, did something really change his mind?

Machi looks to Paku and Shalnark to scale ger confusion against theirs. Shal shrugs his shoulders.

"Before I completed the final condition of Bandit's Secret, the skin of her palm so nearly touched the book's cover," says Danchou. "When she said 'Wallahae' a famous Gortese supplication."

_Famous? I've never heard it._

"Safra's Gortese. East Gortese."

_Huh? Why is that important?_

"East?" says Uvo, scratching his grizzly sideburns. "Which one is that?

"The autocratic one," says Shalnark. "Ruled by Supreme Leader Ming Jol-ik. Heeeeeh," he muses. "TNT-san is a defector."

"Ooo, you don't see that every day," says Uvogin. "All the way from the Balsa jungles, eh?"

"I don't know what's so special about that," says Phinks.

"Only a handful have ever made it out," says Shalnark.

"Hmmm, it's impressive," says Nobunaga with a pouted nod and cupped chin.

"What's so impressive about that?" mutters Feitan. "Does the bare minimum impress you?"

The shadows circling Nobu's eyes darken. "Since when do I have to justify what I think to you?"

The cathedral expanse compresses, the air stifling. Finally, the fond sentiment of meeting with everyone after a bittersweet time apart rips off like a bandage. There's a specific reason why the troupe, with their strong powers and strong personalities, can only stomach each other in small doses.

"Feitan." Franklin warns in his bone-chilling lower register.

Feitan huffs against his collar.

"They say it's nigh impossible to escape. It's something," says Nobunaga, freshly calm again. "I wanna know, what type of an environment someone could learn how to transmute explosives." He pointed at Machi and Feitan. "I know you two were exposed to your substances for years for transmutation. What sort of hell-on-earth is EG?"

"Well, they  _do_ call it the country where—hold on, it's on my phone," Shalnark, furiously tapped his phone. "Ah,  _the Divine spark the lit the fiery gates of Hell._ "

"Sheesh," rasps Uvogin. "Poetic."

Phinks sets his jaw.  _They're really making too big a deal of this..._  Their goal a long time ago was to master nen and they had suffered more than a little pain to reach competency. He himself almost needed a skin graft on his knuckles from trying to refine his nen powered punches. Franklin had sliced the tips of his fingers for better firing efficiency. Feitan had  _bathed_ in liquid fire to test his conjured suit while cultivating his hatsu—true story, Phinks had found out the  _hard_  way that steam could burn.

"Speaking of East Gorteau, don't they funnel all their money into the military? A former military background could explain the TNT exposure and the expertise with the landmines," says Franklin, reaching around his back to adjust his suspenders. "A soldier perhaps. She's too young for any real ranking."

"Mah, she doesn't ring to me as a military type," says Machi, under her breath.

"Might I bring up," says Pakunoda. "We still don't have a lead on who scattered the landmines in Meteor City."

A collective sigh in the chamber. It felt like weeks since Danchou set them out with the mission to uncover those responsible. They had returned after a job to a home literally blowing at the seams, a makeshift graveyard with three hundred unburied and unrefrigerated cadavers, and an indolent council slower than molasses.

"Safra isn't involved," says Danchou. "We can put that to rest."

"What of the other immediate concern? Why hasn't she displaced the nen on Phinks' wrist yet?" asks Pakunoda.

Phinks read no concern from her but rather a curiosity about why the question earlier had been quickly dismissed.

Danchou pauses. Then a tremble at his lips before he ducks his head to compose himself. He's fighting back a humored  _smirk_ on his enlivened face.

Laughter is wine for the soul, and yet his hairline glistens with cold sweat, his instincts anticipating that this form of comedy isn't going to be funny.

"Remember how I said Safra reads the medium material, uses a count-down condition to refine her nen?" Danchou waits until he gets a few nods. "Well, she has never set up a process of conditions to  _extinguish_ her nen after attaching it to a substance, object or person." Restraining a real laugh (to save Phinks some embarrassment, probably) allowing only a tight-lipped smile.

Phinks squeezes the wrist of his suit, using gyo to visualize the still-there manacle on his right wrist. His lips too tremble and pull back to bare his teeth.

_You've got to be kidding me. She can't extinguish her nen on will? She doesn't know how to take this off? Oh, this is too fucking good._

"Ha-ha," croaks Feitan. Feitan doesn't laugh like a normal person, he  _croaks._ "A farewell to Phinks' arm."

_I am going to annihilate that damn book._

Shalnark laughs, somehow relieving someone the duty of doing so, dragging a palm over his entire face. "Oh man, so I guess that means she can't leave once the sandstorm dies down after all."

 _Toss her out now. I'll find_ a nen _exorcist if I have to._

"About that," says Danchou. "I could make an executive decision and that would be that, but I want to be democratic and put it to a vote." He met eyes with each member. "Should Safra be allowed to stay here after the sandstorm? I want her to continue digging up the mines and in the meantime, she should endure nen training," says Chrollo. "Not just in hopes of extinguishing the nen on Phinks' arm, but to someday ally with the troupe."

Finally, the moment Phinks had been waiting for.

"You first, Phinks," asks Danchou, surely expecting Phinks' stance.

"I say absolutely not," says Phinks. "She can't even use her nen."

"Feitan?"

"It's a 'no' for me," says Feitan.

"Shalnark?"

"Hmmm, well besides Phinks' arm...there's a lot of mystery surrounding East Gorteau. Resources are hard to find on the little despot and it's always all in Gortese. A fluent Gortese speaker of the Eastern variant is a valuable resource, neh?"

"Valuable for what?" asks Feitan. "Would your phone not be good enough or simul-talk if in the slim chance you needed Gortese?"

"For West Gortese, yes. For your information, there's not even a dedicated patch available to download for East Gortese. I tried to simul-talk  _wallahi_  or whatever she says into the phone and it comes up with errors," says Shalnark, showing his phone screen to Feitan as proof. The full screen glows blue with a sad face :( signaling a failure to translate. "I've researched this a bit and apparently in the East they speak in code."

"So?"

"So...hmmm," says Shalnark, munching his baby-face in thought. "A maybe."

"Nobunaga? You're a solid no, right?" asks Phinks.

He strokes his stubbly chin, more in admiration than thought. "Volatile, but you have to admit that power is pretty interesting and could be useful."

" _Useful?_ " Phinks spats. If he folds his arms any tighter, he'd probably trigger her TNT nen  _himself._ Is the heavy burnt smell in the air fogging their heads?! "She's pure liability."

"A yes then?" asks Feitan.

"A why-not." Nobunaga shrugs.

"Uvo, did you follow up on the names and numbers?" asks Chrollo.

"Of course, I did. While Fei, Phinks and Shal fetched her. Fazier's crew squealed like pigs. Apparently, Fazier was earning a mint from those mines and she earned more digging in the sand than a doc at Marilla hospital. So I've been told."

"What do you think, Uvo?" asks Chrollo. "About Safra?"

"About as scary as a dead mouse," says Uvogin.

"Franklin?"

"I'm too uncertain to say yes. So I vote no," says Franklin.

"Machi?"

She sighs before saying, "I say maybe. She's not dangerous."

 _Not dangerous?_  Phinks' Adam's apple bobs with a burdened swallow.

"Another one of your bold hunches?" asks Nobunaga.

"You heard Uvo. Money is what she cares about, right? It's predictable so what's so dangerous about that?"

"She can't control her nen, is what. She's pure liability," says Phinks. He could ram his forehead against a wall.

"If that were true, Machi, why come all the way here to be a mercenary?" asks Franklin. "She didn't get mixed up with the Mafia before coming here, Uvo?"

"After," says Uvo.

"There are plenty of ways to get money if she's money-hungry," says Franklin. "Why not rob a bank?"

_Exactly. How many hundreds of banks did she stroll by in the thousands of kilometers she passed on her merry way to Meteor City?_

"Sah," Machi sighs, but not relenting. "Probably doesn't have the resources to pull off a heist by herself."

Shalnark shrugs. "Good point. The frame of context. She did stumble into a very convenient way with her ability to earn money."

"She came here on her own will," says Danchou.

Phinks snorts. "I find that hard to believe. No one comes here without a purpose"

"She  _has_ a purpose," says Danchou.

"She told you Danchou?" asks Pakunoda.

"She didn't have to," says Danchou. "Money is too narrow of an answer. As Shalnark said, context. For example, if they can make it, Eastern refugees are entitled to a large settlement stipend in West Gorteau. If money were all she wanted, she would have taken advantage of that stipend."

"Why bother with Meteor City if a jackpot is waiting for her there?" asks Uvo.

_Which means she's definitely lying about why she's here. Or worse, she's lying about being from EG._

"Shalnark, can you do a quick search on any new refugees registered in West Gorteau within the last six months?" asks Danchou.

Shalnark whips out his phone but then frowns. "I can access better info on the Hunter's website."

"A standard search on the internet will do," says Danchou. "They list them in the newspaper."

A fury of button mashing. "No new registries within the last year. Not in the last  _three_ years."

Danchou nods. "Just as I thought. She never registered. Even under a false name. In order to get that money, she must register in WG. The WG government quarantine refugee applicants and spend weeks verifying their story to stop scam artists from taking the stipend. Think about it. Why does anyone come to Meteor City?

"To disappear," says Feitan."

"East Gorteau follows a 'finger-point' system to purge traitors and reward snitches. One person's decision to defect can endanger up to three generations of family. WG announces every new refugee as a mockery to EG and in part to deter more from coming for the stipend. She wanted to stay off the grid. That means Safra probably still has loved ones left behind in EG."

Finally, Danchou lay his card hand on the table for all to see. Why he could so easily dismiss accusations that she planted the landmines, the reasons for her secrecy. There was still a wild card in the deck. Did Danchou have a plan or an idea to manipulate her goals?

"Omokage? Your answer?"

 _Click. Click._ His lip ring against his bottom lip as he always did to fill the silence while he deliberated.

"Depends. What are Danchou's true intentions for housing a poor nen user with an ability he can mold and nurture? He's infallible about asserting her innocence. To keep her within arm's length. To protect her and for why?"

"Are you jealous, Omokage?" says Danchou with a rare sarcastic sting.

Warmth flashes in Phinks' cheeks.

The second time in one day, Omokage's pupils almost swallow his irises, leaving what looks like gaping black holes.

"What are you getting at, Omokage?" asks Nobunaga.

 _Yeah,_   _what the hell are you getting at_?

His long fringe curtains over his face, but not hiding his widening, all-knowing smile. "I think Danchou has a caper in mind but he doesn't want to spoil the surprise yet," says Omokage in sleek sibilance.

_Wait, does Danchou have a caper in the works?_

Omokage licks his pierced bottom lip,  _clicking_ the silver ring against his teeth. "I will say yes."

"Pakunoda?" asks Danchou, unaffected by Omokage's suspicion, jarringly diverting the topic away from any questions pertaining to a caper.

She moves her weight to her left hip. "I didn't get a lot of information from her. A few glimpses of the past before I hit a mental wall. That requires decent mental fortitude."

"Your point?" asks Phinks.

"She demonstrated a capacity to grasp advanced abilities. Enough to counter my own. She's not hopeless."

"You sound awfully sympathetic," says Feitan with an edge.

"As for my answer, I agree with Danchou. I never thought she's a mole. I vote yes. No matter what happens I can—no, I want to face her again."

"You don't have to, Paku. To confirm my assumptions I'm willing to go the old fashion route," says Danchou.

"Torture?" asks Feitan.

Danchou smiles. "Even more old fashion than that. I'll ask her."

"Danchou, I insist. I want to delve deeper and construct a full profile of her. Without support," she says, casting serious eyes at her fellow members before the question of others accompanying her inevitably come.

"Didn't she essentially threaten to blow you up last time you tried?" asks Feitan.

"You don't have anything to prove, Paku," says Phinks.

"When did I say I have something to prove? I am not so arrogant," she says lowly with a smirk that would look smug on anyone else, but on her looks poise. "But I can do it."

Paku, like Machi, has solid judgment and far be it for Chrollo to deter her from what she yearned for with conviction. "If you insist," says Chrollo.

"And the vote?" asks Phinks.

"A tie, neh?" says Feitan.

"Three yes, three no, and three undecided and I won't break the tie," says Danchou.

"Leave it to fate. Decide by coin?" says Shalnark.

 _For fuck's sake. This isn't something inconsequential spat. Are we really going to decide something so important by_ coin _?_

"May I do the honors, Danchou?" asks Uvo, already reaching into a pelt pocket. A flash of gold in the dimming chamber—the coin with the Spider insignia. "Heads is the winning yes, tails is the final no."

He rests the coin on his thumb, on the gargantuan man, the coin is barely as wide as his nail. He bends his thumb joint, charging it with tension before pitching the coin high into the shadows of the chamber ceiling. Right when it seems the coin disappeared forever, it tumbles towards them. Uvo catches the coin and flips it onto his hirsute arm. One by one, he lifts his digits, full of anticipation and with a maniacal leer, he says, "And fate declares…"

On Uvo's arm, the twelve-legged spider gleams like a divine wink. Silence in the atrium, save for the sand raining against the cathedral towers and the whistle of softening winds.

Feitan casts a dismayed glance at him that Phinks could read better than words on a page:  _she's our responsibility now._

_I know, Fei, I KNOW. The half-pint is our burden now._

"Go ahead Paku," says Chrollo. "Ask her anything."

As Paku turns she catches her eye, one last time, on the leaky pipe and the two holes, recalling the clamorous bang of their creation as she stalks out.

Paku steps between Phinks and Feitan and he holds his breath to restrain all left unsaid.

She is dangerous. More than the others are grasping. It doesn't matter if she's a rookie. That she's slower than the continental drift. That her punch couldn't crush an ant. Even if her heart is as pure and angelic as the winged bastards in the stained glass and sculptures. NONE of that matters because, with her, all she needs to wreak havoc is a tiny, negligent slip from her opponent. Admittedly, he had slipped with her earlier and nearly lost an arm. That won't happen again and why were they so willing to keep a liability of that magnitude just hanging around like a ticking time bomb?

A literal ticking time bomb. Yet he trusts Danchou. Like Omokage surmised, he must have a purpose. That bit of certainty is the crux of why he calmly let Paku walk out, why he didn't protest the vote and unleash a rant,  _anything_ to get them to grasp the danger. Bad news, as a result of 'introducing' her to the troupe, he along with Feitan would be responsible for her so even if they dispersed, they couldn't avoid her completely. They'd have to instill the values and rules of the troupe into her and damn it, he'd make sure it becomes second nature. Good news, he and Fei already had a plan tumbling into action.

He remembered Feitan's words in the corridor. They had slowed their pace to drag the walk back even longer.

"Eh?" Phinks said a tad skeptical. "That's...simple."

"Sometimes simple is better," said Feitan. When Phinks didn't respond, he added, "Trust me, it will work. You don't carry something five thousand kilometers across the world and not have it mean the world to you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the pov shift to third for some segments isn't jarring since most of this story will be tight 1st person pov. A Safra/Paku scene next. I love Paku's character so much. I love her design, her emotional core, her sacrifice in the end. And I left another hint about Feitan and Phinks' initiation plan. Yep, it is an initiation.
> 
> Here I've taken some liberties (as I said I would) with Omokage's character and given him a fascination with Chrollo. Because let's be honest we all have a fascination with Chrollo-don't lie, you too XD And sorry but I couldn't resist inserting playful-Chrollo with that jealous line. Is it believable or nah? Clever Chrollo, was able to deduce her situation by just one Gortese word.
> 
> THANK YOU for kudos and a special shoutout to littlemysteries for commenting! The scene where Safra sees Chrollo and the whole troupe I reworked the most and I'm happy to hear people enjoyed it. It's probably my favorite scene so far. ��
> 
> I mentioned it on the ffdotnet version, I haven't tagged him yet but Hisoka-fans, Safra will meet Hisoka. It will be a LONG WHILE BUT I PROMISE everyone's favorite psychopath clown WILL make a grand appearance. Til next time!


	9. Paku's x Memory x Bomb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A volunteer steps up to train Safra. Meanwhile, Pakunoda and Safra allay suspicions and self-doubt through the exchange of precious memories.

In the atrium, Machi awaits the next item on the agenda: who will train Safra?

"She is a Transmuter. That much is clear," says Danchou.

"How do you improve upon an ability like hers?" asks Nobunaga.

"Touching a substance or medium seems like a bother. Learning emission would fix that," says Franklin.

"When she begins her training, it would be appropriate for a Transmuter to get her started," says Danchou.

Feitan balls his hands into fists in his pockets, cross with the request before Danchou even uttered it.

Machi raises a hand. "I want to do it, Danchou."

"You  _what_?" says Phinks.

"You're volunteering?" asks Feitan. Even with the collar, Feitan's irritation is blatant.

_Aren't I doing you a favor?_  Says the sassed backhand to her hip.  _You don't want her here and you'll try to scare her off._

"I'm the only other Transmuter," she says. "Your tempers are still flaring. If I let you two sink your teeth into her now, you'll break her.  _And I know all about your little plan._ "

Phinks sets his jaw and shuts his eyes but doesn't mutter anything.

"Machi likes to jab her needles right to the bone," says Feitan.

"You and Phinks brought her here, Feitan, so we'll yield to your wishes," says Danchou. "Any objections to Machi training Safra?"

"None, Danchou," says Feitan before turning to Machi. "Enjoy your new pincushion."

Machi purses her lips.

"What if..." chimes in Omokage. "She says no?"

" _Hmmm_ , Pakunoda is persuasive though," says Shalnark.

"She  _is_  going to say no," says Danchou, treating the scenario as tenuous. Once again the air strains heavily with questions no one in the troupe dares to ask.  _This is par for course for you, isn't it Danchou?_

"No matter, for now, the rules will apply to her," says Danchou. "Machi, go ahead and train her."

A gentle crack of her gloves as she reaches for her bag and tosses it over her shoulder. "Leave it to me."

* * *

I'm not alone.

After rubbing my sore bum, and recovering my pride, to my surprise there's a fluffy futon, a pitcher of ice water, an unopened aspirin bottle, and a modest sandwich waiting for me. The full pitcher sat on the food cover and I wondered why until I saw it.

A brown rat, basically a tailed coconut, sniffs his whiskered nose against the lid, but the weight of the water pitcher on top permitted him no further. I clear my throat and clap my gloves. Instead of scampering away like a rodent ought to, he sits up and gives me a ratty-glare.

Geez, I can't even intimidate a rat around here.

I slump on the concrete nook and uncover the food. They've given me a half loaf sandwich with sliced cheese, tomatoes and green onions, very Meteor City cuisine. I don't take off my gloves. The bread crunches like a dream when I gently squeeze. Hunger ravages my belly and all the way up my throat. I could eat three of these sandwiches and still have room, but I break the sandwich in half, shaking as I do so.

I almost bite my fingers while eating the last bit of sandwich when I hear the soft clacking of shoes outside my chamber door. A knock. The door opens. The Six-Shooter without her six-shooter—Pakunoda.

The rat scurries away. I don't blame him. She's an arresting mix of alluring and intimidating.

Her plum tapered suit conveys tart-sweetness. The pink lapels and flats hint an underlying girliness I also envy because I miss it within myself. It's not just her height or her curves I envy, but what they represent: maturity and womanhood. I bet we're close in age, but being short and... _underdeveloped_ in the assets department, I embody permanent  _youthful_  essence (prepubescent comes to mind, but even introspectively I won't allow it). Amari says I show my age in my ghost eyes. I'm especially grumpy about it now because I'm alone with Paku and would trade bodies with her in a heartbeat.

She has guts to wear such a plunging neckline with a dangerously short miniskirt. Especially in the desert. I cover head to toe with multiple layers and I still get sand trapped behind my eyeballs and in my navel. How does she work an outfit like that in Meteor City with such easy elegance?

"How have you taken to your chamber?" she asks, tilting a glance at my empty pitcher and half-eaten sandwich.

The walls are grimy, there are furry occupants, the chamber faces the East so the setting sun casts menacing shadows on the religious sculptures. But the bouquet of colored light casting on the black stone floor from the tinted glass won my heart.

"Believe it or not, it's more comfortable here than at Fazier's." Nothing ill on the man, he was generous to me, but an open den and two table chairs pressed together as a make-shift bed, while not the worst, wasn't private nor comfortable. When you've lived in a prison bunk with fifteen other people you cherish the ability to close a door. "Thank you for the futon, food, and water. Oh, there are rats by the way."

"Vermin is a common problem in Meteor City, but they're more scared of you than you are of them."

Not Mr. Giant Rat over there.

Before the pleasantries can sink in, she approaches, her heels clacking with the gait of a high-authority businesswoman.

A normal person would meander in their surroundings and lose eye contact to soften the exchange but Paku does the opposite. Her eyes droop, not fatigued like Feitan but watchful like Nobunaga. Her stare is unnerving when she crosses the chamber in two strides and sits next to my folded futon, beside me.

Well, out with it. I know you didn't walk all the way here to ask me about my comfort.

The tension is so pronounced the only way to draw more attention to it is to trace an elephant on the wall with yellow TNT. I dust the breadcrumbs off the bulky gloves and wipe my mouth.

"Is your power dependent on touch, like mine?" I ask to fill the silence.

"Yes, but it doesn't have to be skin to skin. Leaning against you in a crowd, even with clothes is plenty," she says. "I operate as support in the troupe. One touch I unlock full access to their purest thoughts, abilities, desires, weaknesses, anything worth exploiting."

See, that's a cool power. "I can imagine why that would be valuable to the troupe."

She glances down, at the inflamed scratches on my neck. "I'm sorry for the injuries I caused you."

"A few scratches can't hurt me. You were more soft-handed than Blondie."

Realization flickers in her eyes, and then a chuckle when it sinks in Blondie meant her comrade Phinks, not Shalnark nor herself. There are too many blonds in the troupe.

"Feitan and Phinks, they better have it out of their systems because they can't touch you anymore."

They said the EXACT same thing in the hall before they knocked me on my ass. "But why?"

"Because Danchou wants to extend an offer of membership your way," she says. "No serious fights with other members is a pillar of how we function in the troupe."

"Membership?" I repeat. Number 11. I imagine standing next to Uvo as comrades and I could laugh like a drunk horse. "Tell Chrollo I appreciate the offer, but I don't think I'm fit for the Spider. Plus it's not necessary. I don't mind working with the troupe and I don't care if the rules apply to me. I'll follow whatever rules you want.

She acknowledges my answer in silence.

"On that note, why did he send you, and not extend the invitation himself?"

"My visit is threefold: extend the invitation, clear the air, and confirm some integral information."

I knew it. How many times was I going to have to declare my innocence? I bump my sore bum when I turn to face her.

She's a striking beauty, I've decided. At first glance you might find her aquiline nose too witchy, eyes too sunken in, lips too bowed, but as a Gortese, who was always surrounded by other Gortese people, her distinct Yorubian features are enthralling.

"You know, if you had said, I have this clairvoyant technique and I want to make sure you personally did not bury the landmines in Meteor City, I would have cooperated. I have nothing to hide."

The razor point of her hair falls over her bowed mouth when it smirks. An all-knowing expression of someone who had heard that line a million times before.

"Of course you do. Everyone has something to hide," she says. "You indeed kicked me out, but you didn't give me nothing."

"What did you see?"

"A diversionary memory. One you threw to disorient me before you sealed your mind."

"Can you be more specific?"

"Every little bloody detail of your tremulous first day in Meteor City."

They say scent is the sense most tied to memory and I certainly believe it when I'm transported back to sewer water and blood. "Yet that memory wasn't enough to clear me?"

"Again, it was a diversionary memory. One you didn't mindfully choose, which means it lingers as a safety crutch on the top of your mind. I had reason to think it was fabricated."

"I can't use  _mien_  to fabricate memories."

"Before today, I had never heard of  _mien_."

I take off Feitan's left glove, relieving textured red, rope indents in my wrist from the gloves tight band.

"Go ahead, and show me how your power works," I say, opening my palm. "I'm curious too. And if it can finally clear me of any wrongdoing, all the better."

She didn't walk in thinking I would beckon her, what I read from the faint angling of her brows. I'm Gortese, Paku, even without mien I can read you by the finest ticks in your pretty face.

Her power puts her in the role of resident interrogator, but she isn't immune to tiny slips in her confident facade.

…Unless I'm totally missing something.

"Are you going to hold back your  _mien_?" she asks."

"I said I would cooperate."

She wraps her warm palm over mine.

I don't feel anything at first but then her nen, the color of orchids, twines up my arm and hugs me. The strangest hug I've ever felt.

"What is your name?" she asks and I realize it's a metric, one to determine how I react to easy questions.

No mental image, but a voice from the past.  _"_ _Saaaafrrrrra,"_  my mother sings and it strums my heartstrings. Her tone is...sweet, lacking the usual,  _wallahae, what the heck have you and Amari done now_?—tone.

"How old are you?"

Wow, even I have to think about it. I was born in '72 and it's summer now so...I turned 21 this Spring.  _Wallahae,_ I was in that prison for over three years. 1/7th of my life.

"Do you know who buried the mines here?"

I have no damn clue. Memories of Fazier prattling about the subject fills my head. And hers. How he spoke with exasperation and disbelief. The loud sun, even from my memory, urges me to squint in the chamber.

"What did you do before you arrived in Meteor City?"

Ammonia suffocates the tiny washroom and black water pouring down the drain after I dye my copper hair to onyx in West Gorteau. The softest silk beige blouse I've ever touched, the one I stole from some boutique and my jaw dropped from sticker shock that it cost more than a year's salary in EG. The loud neon lights in downtown Zeoul, bones scattered in the sand like seashells while I cross the DMZ and defect from EG.

"Before you left East Gorteau," she asks.

A deeper tickle in my brain and the memories trickle out.

Abiji swats me hard on the nose for the umpteenth time because I broke my  _aura/em > after she challenged me to hold it overnight.  _"It's impossible,"_  I talk back._

__

She swats me again.  _"You're making it impossible."_

"You had a nen master?" asks Paku, interrupting.

I nod. "One of the pioneers of mien." And you've never even heard of her.

The barbed wire of the prison camp and the nostril-sizzling electrocuted flesh of a comrade. Can Pakunoda smell memories too?

"I can," she answers, squashing my question like a bug.

The windowless, concrete monster of a building for solitary confinement…the memories plunge into darkness.

The tickle becomes a futile pinching. She wants to delve further but she can't. Even I can't remember what happened behind those bullet-proof, password-locked, metal doors, Pakunoda.

I almost let go of her palm before I ask one last time. That should confirm that I was never involved with the landmines being buried in Meteor City. "Anything else?"

Maroon eyes narrow and her grip tightens to my dismay.

"Do you have family? A lover? Someone you consider important?" Her words vibrate against my ears.

Hold on a second…

Three years ago.

A 9x9 rosewood board with scattered white and black pieces. Huan is both strategizing and banishing me with the silent treatment during a game of Gungi. Bags under his brown eyes, a yellow tint in his skin. I can't even remember what we argued about that morning. The same old probably. He bypasses my fortress piece with his spy and snickers. He can't contain them no matter how irritated he is with me. It's music to my ears.  _"You suck at this game, Saf."_

_"Then why do you play with me?"_

_"I like your unorthodox way of playing. It's unpredictable."_

_"But I lose every time."_

_"If you cared, you'd win every time."_

The scene changes, a dump of color, shapes form and the excess evaporates. His face becomes Amari and their features almost mirror each other.

I'm drinking cold barley tea with Amari. The Dear Leader, Ming Jol-ik's picture frame is turned face down in her living room. I'm staring out her window, at the tropical rain pattering on the fan leaves while Amari is square with me, scolding me.

_"Take care of yourself and stop being so pigheaded."_

She told me this even when her round face, plump even during the famine of our youth, has lost some shape from stress. She should take her own advice. She prattles about married life, her dull husband who adored her, being a quiet housewife, a whisper of the daredevil sister who was my partner in crime.

_"When did you become so boring, Amari?"_

I leave her house with her ringing laugh in my ears.

Paku is thieving me. The urgent innervation is to shout  _enough_ and kill the connection between us. Yet I ignore it. Instead, as it crawls over me like a trail of ants, I choose to indulge a rather reckless whim.

Phantom Troupe, let this be a lesson to all of you, via your agent tasked with seeking information. I am  _not_ a parakeet to cage, poke and prod so I'd careen manically in the cathedral. So I try something I've never tried.

Abiji's mantra was that the human mind is treacherous waters even for skilled nen users. Like how throwing punches even with good technique, it is inevitable that an athlete's body will brittle. On the same notion, Abiji warned exposing yourself to another's mental state and experiencing them viscerally, runs the cost of losing yourself. Swim too deep and you may never reach the surface again. I understand why Paku only reads the dirt that floats to the top.

She wanted to delve into me so I'll help her.

I can build a mental wall with  _mien,_  capable of locking an intruder out, but who's to say I can't trap someone in _?_

A distressed hitch from Paku as she senses the circumstances quake and my nen slither around hers. I catch her wrist and anchor my nails into her skin. I don't blink to watch every regretful contort of her lovely features.

A second stretches to an excruciating minute of her floundering, aghast paling even her aura. But she's much stronger than me, physically, mentally and with nen. She soon breaks to the surface, physically or mentally or with nen, I'm not sure because I ache across all three.

Pakunoda rips away, propelling herself a distance exceeding my arm's reach, while I rub my throbbing head. We catch our breath for a minute, the risk to her and the audacity of my stunt permeating.

The shadows cast menace onto her as they do the statues. I retreat under the dimming beam of light from the tinted glass. The bright hues set with the sun and all color will inevitably fade into darkness.

" _Don't_ ev-er do that again," I pant.

She rubs the crescent moon indents in her wrist. "You  _are_ dangerous."

To my astonishment, anger doesn't ripple through her, instead, she's  _charmed_.

What is wrong with these people?!

"So, who were they? The girl and the boy? I saw bits of your bone structure and quirks in them. Siblings?"

I can't hide my reaction. My head is too muddled. I wring my robe's knees but manage to hold my face.

"That was what you wanted. That's why you came here." My half-empty stomach or not, it churns so much that bile creeps up my throat.

I don't see a revolver anywhere on her suit-it might be conjured-but then why is she so confident? "They're not here with you in Meteor City. So they're still in East Gorteau?"

Once again, I underestimated these people.

_"What_  do you want?" I snap.

"To uncover what  _you_  want," she says. "Why aren't they with you in Meteor City? Did you abandon them there just so you could make money?"

The logical side of me knows her flippant question is only a metric to measure my reaction. But still, there's a sandstorm outside and there's a different storm thundering inside.

There's a saying, 'a Gortese face is nothing but a mask. Our sincerity is vile enough to melt our pretty skins'. Saving face is a Gortese past time. Not a muscle, not even so much as an eyelash moves on my face at Paku's question, but inside I'm venomous. I don't have a train of thought, I have a twister of thoughts, hydroplaning with a trail of abject destruction in its wake.

I'm in shambles, but  _mie_ _n_  sweeps it all away. The storm clouds clear, leaving a calm gray sheet and I finally exhale.

Sweat falls behind my ear. "Nice try."

She crosses her arms and sighs. " _Daijoubu_  Safra, everything is alright. You just misunderstand. I'm not out to exploit you. You having a family isn't a problem."

It's the first time she has used my name and it helps her soothing words reach me.

"In order to assess what you can be to the troupe, I need to know what demons you carry with you."

From Huan's tangents about wishing to join the military, I once heard all military basic personnel undergo psych evaluation. They undergo a stress test personally designed to destroy them, their anxieties discovered and manipulated.  _This_ meeting with Paku is that psych evaluation.

"So, what do you plan to do?" asks Paku. "Do you have a sense of familial duty? Are you going to leave them there? If you have plans to smuggle them out, Danchou can help you. If you keep unburying the landmines and can someday soon declare Meteor City clean of mines, the troupe can help you, a matter of duty."

"Help?"

She nods. "Do you have arrangements to smuggle them out?"

Besides the vaguest of ideas, no. They don't make guidebooks titled 'how to smuggle your family out of a despot in your spare time'. In the midst of my escape, I didn't think to set the groundwork to later get them out. Leaving without them already filled me to the brim with regret. I made one mistake in that I gravely underestimated how much I need to understand about the outside world to set a plan in motion.

I understand the Gortese framework and rules, but with each day my awareness of how little I know about the outside world deepens and broadens. Maybe I need to rethink this. Maybe having an infamous group of bandits offer me help as long as I clear the landmines is…a blessing?

"What I can be to the troupe, so he thinks if my nen ability can flourish, as he put it, I can be an asset to your group of bandits," I say. "I can continue clearing the mines. I have no qualms with that but anything else, I cannot believe that  _I_ can honestly be any sort of an asset to you."

I have only tasted what some of these members are capable of and it dwarfs any ambitions I have about my nen. At best, I can create some TNT. I can make a few small explosions, cool. A party trick maybe, make some fireworks, but what else? Aren't my abilities narrow in the end?

Pakunoda has a habit of raising her chin to further emphasize how she can loom over you. I only notice now because she tips her chin now to diminish herself.

"Here I thought you were emboldened by Danchou."

Did I imagine the playful spin in her voice? The nerves burn hot in my chest and I felt like backing away. I don't recall giving her my private talk with Chrollo...

"That's not what I mean," I say. I'm struggling with the Japanese words. "I think his expectations are too grand and that he'll be disappointed. I can't be utilized like you can."

"Let me get something straight, I am  _not_ some instrument for the troupe," she admonishes but then her tone softens. "That said, I don't think Danchou is wrong about you."

That rings deeps though I'm still not swayed entirely. I believe they call this imposter syndrome.

"I'll be honest, I'm not sure what Danchou has planned. He wouldn't be so deliberate if he didn't have a plan for you. But it might ease your  _manic_ thoughts to know that I didn't join with certainty either. Danchou was certain but I couldn't imagine a path back then as I can now. For what it's worth, I support you staying."

Even after what I just did she supports me staying? "Can you tell me why you joined?"

A pause to signal that I had just asked a question with an answer that can't be easily forged into mere words. So she decides to forego words.

Her nen concentrates in her right hand, and a gun fabricates from the stale air.

"I could tell you, or I could show you." She extends her gun arm.

I go cross-eyed at the tip of the brass barrel.

This is not the first time a gun has been held to my face. The initial instinct is not to hold perfectly still but to bolt.

I swallow the lump in my throat. "Is this going to hurt?" My voice almost squeaks.

"The bullet won't," she says and fires.

A rapid metallic glimmer before the crash at my forehead but instead of digging through my skull, blasting out my brains, the bullet dematerializes.

I clench the edge of the concrete nook to hold onto reality but all my physical surroundings tear away. There's only my conscious and the nen soaking my senses.

The memories strobe. A movie on super-fast-forward, a roller coaster car, roaring like a train while free-falling down a steep hill. I shut my eyes, but the images plaster over my mind's eye and I can't escape even if I wanted to.

* * *

I'm gazing peacefully up at the sky when I come to.

Early morning or early evening, I can't quite tell until I see the sun greeting the rising crescent moon and the shy twinkle of stars. The moldy and rusty fetor of Meteor City waves over me but noted with calm and opportunity. I peer down at the figure in front of me.

A boyish young man clad in a suit—Chrollo?!

Holy smokes how different he looks dressed as a normal person. Smooth tresses sweep over a tattoo-less forehead, skin awash with orange light. Thinner body frame with less raw power and yet he still yields the same magnetism. I might be projecting into that because I've seen what he became, but even in the past, he commands the full attention of his audience. Even without the jade earrings, I'm still beckoned to those gloomy ghost eyes.

What year is it? Can't be more than five years ago.

The rest of the audience looms into focus. They are miniature versions of themselves but I recognize them immediately—Nobunaga, Uvogin, Feitan, and Machi.

Even younger, with no pencil mustache, and less experience etched into lines on his face, Nobu's loose kimono silhouette is the same. The man has barely aged.

Midnight green-haired young man dressed in black, sitting in profile—wallahae. It's Feitan's face! The top half of his face is the same—those frowning eyes, but the bottom half! It exists! I know I'm in a memory and it can't affect a thing, I can only sneak glances because it's like I'm seeing him naked. To my dismay, I'll admit he is good looking, devilish good looks, when he doesn't have the collar of death raised.

Beside me stands Machi. But someone had taken a brush and smoothed the spiky tresses so that her cotton candy hair frames naturally along her pretty face. Her eyes still glow brilliantly blue, but the edge is gone, or hasn't developed yet. She looks like one of the cute girls I went to school with, not a would-be member of the elusive Phantom Troupe.

Finally, the two giant dudes of the troupe, who are still giant but not titanous yet.

Franklin looks like a big-ol' teddy-bear and I can't believe I'm saying that about the guy who now looks spliced and sewn together.

It's not that Uvogin is harder to recognize, it's that I'm having trouble believing that soft-expression and human uncertainty could ever belong to a beast with the sinister smirk who feigned biting off my ear for chuckles.

That's what's throwing me off here—the humanity. I wouldn't glance twice at any of them if they sauntered by me in the city markets. These are the same people who made me feel like a tiny penny?

Hair sticks to my glossed lips. I brush it away—styled blonde hair and an ashy strand clings to my nimble fingers. I peer down, hourglass body that's  _obviously not mine_. Chin on collar, I can't immediately see my shoes over my breasts, limbs longer than I'm used too (I wanna get used to this)—I'm in Pakunoda's perspective.

The sun sets behind us and the dunes. I hug myself against the crisp chill. I too become engrossed in Chrollo, his dark suit absorbing the harmonious hues.

Why is there a reluctance about him? _They held a vote_ , the omniscient answer comes to me. They elected him as their leader but he hadn't appointed himself. From Chrollo to Danchou of all these people—us.

"I am the head, and you are the legs of the spider," says Chrollo. "Natural law dictates the legs blindly follow the head. However, this simply represents the chain of command. It doesn't apply to my life or death. If I happen to die, one of you can replace me. And there may be a time when a leg becomes more important than the head.

"We are from a place that exists and doesn't exist. We will function in the same way. We may spend years apart but our bond will be supreme. Thinner than water but thicker than blood."

I feel her skepticism as jitters in my/her clammy hands.  _Why join?_ She doesn't know what he sees in her. The comrades she has met in Meteor City, she wants to stay by their side, so she joins. Her purpose is her comrades, her brothers and sister.

* * *

The scenes bump into each other. Chrollo teaches them a power called 念 nen. The initiation from Chrollo, an electric jolt zapping her shoulder forces her aura nodes open like pores. Her life energy leaks out of her being and shrouds around her.

A goblet of water for a divination test. They can't find a leafy tree nearby so they use scrap plastic. The scrap spins for Shalnark, the water gushes out for Uvo, the water tastes like raspberry seltzer for Machi, but when Paku shrouds the cup with her nen, the plastic changes density and sinks to the depths.

"Hers is a category furthest away from the others," declares Chrollo. "She's a specialist."

* * *

Choosing her ability came naturally.

Paku has the best eye in the troupe and is a dead shot with her revolver. Before she arrived in Meteor City, politicians, mafia, married men would often drape their arms over her and whisper into her ear.

She never had to say much, her legs did all the talking. She'd fold one over the other and watch their sight follow the straight lines of light reflect off her hot skin.

_Tell me what I want to hear_ , she'd think to will the vital information from their drunk tongues. Just one touch to seal the deal. Sloshed from champagne and giddy they'd smile and say as her hand would slide over theirs, "I feel like I can tell you anything."

Her specialist ability uses her natural charm, but faster. No seduction involved, just a touch to pluck grapes of information from a vine. Her power fits her better than her tailored suit.

* * *

Doubtful jitters nearly mucked her composure during the heat of a heist. Shalnark and Danchou found her in the surveillance control room from the gunshots. She stood, surveying what she had done, exposed in the searing light of the security screens. Their shoes sink into inky blood. Four bodies lay at her feet. She must have fired so fast with such precision the guards were dead before they hit the tile.

"Tell us what you saw," says Shalnark.

"I have another idea," she says. She douses two bullets with strings of her memory. She loads her revolver and aims it at her boss. "Do you trust me?" Do I trust myself?

They had never seen Memory Bomb before, and all he knows is that she is aiming a loaded gun to his forehead, yet he says peacefully, "Of course, Paku. Do what you need to do."

Shalnark freezes with a gulp but doesn't say anything, what I had experienced when Paku pointed the barrel at me.

Her exterior is cool but she needs a calming breath and pushes all the doubts to her feet before she fires. Her comrades almost reel back from the sheer invasive impact and their eyes gloss as the scene bursts in their minds. It's only a second, but in their minds, the scene unfolds in synthesized time.

When they come to, they blink and regard their surroundings. It's only been a second, but they've been gone for an hour.

"Memory Bomb… you weren't joking," says Shalnark, still bunching his blasted blond head with a laugh, cold sweat dangling from his jaw. His laugh collides with the tang of fresh blood.

"You've done amazing," says Chrollo, out of breath. "I was always sure of you, Paku."

_There it is._ The preeminent touch of something greater than one's self, a fulfilling sense of purpose. The last traces of her uncertainty about herself and why she joined stay behind with the flickering light in the control room. His words echo through, not just me, but the fabric of her memory.

* * *

The end of the movie reel, finally and the chamber fades in. I focus on her maroon eyes and my senses awkwardly return to the details of my room: the uncaring dust, the slowing winds outside and the aloof statues and the fading kaleidoscope of rainbow light as the sun sets for the day.

Her message:  _I know how you feel Safra. I was you a long time ago. This is barely comprehensible to you at the moment, but do not fear. You are in good hands._

Her mental voice croons like a blue's singer. I bet she's a sultry singer, all low register, full of character that moves you to nurse a strong drink in a dingy bar. After this hellish day, I desperately need a strong drink.

I shut my eyes to make the world hold still and to deliberate even though I'm not so arrogant and  _pigheaded_  to think I have any other choice.

"Thank you, Pakunoda. I'm still not officially joining but I think I understand more—OW!"

My head cracks, figuratively, like glass bowl but I press the pieces together otherwise my head will split.

"Everyone feels that way. Give it a moment," she says.

It's not the nen bullet, but your bruised brain adjusting to reality again that hurts like hell, absorbing the heavy fact only a second had passed and those minutes and hours of memories were just an illusion.

The sensation ebbs away.

A stern knock at the door again but it might as well be an iron pan clogging against my aching head.

Glacial Blues fills the door frame. Emotions I can withhold, disorientation and pain are more difficult. "I heard the gunshot," she says in a casual tone that didn't suit her words. Machi has probably seen someone recovering from Paku's Memory Bomb (love the name by the way) so many times, from the way she strolls in and drops her bag to the corner without pause she must know the drill.

The ladies of the troupe engage in eye-rapport. Paku nods to her in a way I almost miss and Machi sets her gloved hands to her hips.

"Hope you've had enough time to rehydrate and eat."

I pitifully nod from the pain drilling into my teeth.

_"Sah,_ Safra is it? Get up. I'll be the one conducting your training and we start  _now_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the epic training montage begin! OK, not a Rocky-style training montage, no Joe Especto music (you're the best arrouunnddd—sorry needed that out of my system). Congrats to those who guessed right that Machi would be training her, but do not despair if she's not your fav troupe member (I'd know your favs btw) because Safra will gain valuable training info from everyone. It takes a village, am I right? I've been waiting to write the training parts because I get to be more creative with nen. If I didn't choose according to Safra's circumstances and personality, I would have picked a hatsu like Shizuku's. Safra's woes about trying to think outside the box for her ability was a bit of a self-insert of my conundrum. I'll admit that trying to figure out various ways to use a TNT ability besides the obvious explosive properties was a challenge. Thankfully, Machi has some ideas :D
> 
> Please pardon the longer length of this chapter. It didn't want to cooperate at first then I cut like 2k, mostly memories, and it's still longer than usual ^_^;
> 
> So National Novel Writing Month is going on but I *should* have enough pre-written to keep regular updates, but just wanted to give a heads up! Anyone else attempting it this year? Best wishes to those who are :)
> 
> HEAPS OF THANK YOUS for kudos! Hope you all enjoy reading :) Til next time!


	10. We x are x Thieves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Beginning section includes talk of death. Once again, the beginning is set in the past and the following parts are in the present.

So, my mother was a mortician. She was the eccentric funeral home lady of our bay town, which people thought was a somber and morbid profession for a young married woman with children. She was considered too energetic, too young and too pretty to be an undertaker. "Why not a school teacher? Or a nurse?"

She'd scoff at that with pert lips. She loved talking about death. How the body decomposed, the gases and excrement (random strangers always asked about corpse poo), and also death and spiritualism. Though Gortese shed foreign influences and religions, they're surprisingly open-minded to death of various cultural conceptions as a means of appeasing all to cover bases.

The only thing that can outdo Gortese pride is Gortese weakness for superstition.

I didn't understand the disapproval of my mother's choice of work. She would take a keen interest and open her mind to others and their idiosyncrasies. "Breathe life into death," was her mantra. "It's a purification."

An avid reader, she'd jabber for ages to us about death, the metaphors, the similes, the Gortese symbols and how they differed from the other Balsa islands and the Northern Continent. Human souls, ghosts, the undead, how the dead sometimes refuse to move on and never find peace. She liked being a mortician because she said it helped their peaceful passing. Respect the dead and respect their bodies lest they haunt the rest of your days.

She reveled at the living side of death. She'd assist grieving families write their eulogies, she'd watch the family politics unfold, whispered in the corners of the hall. She loved the _weird_ requests and questions. An _abiji_ had her foot amputated and approached her about having it buried—she said yes, got a nice casket for it and everything. A widowed man asked that she take out the unborn fetus of his dead seven-month pregnant wife and simply place it in her arms, upright. So their heads would be upright when they were cremated together. Said she wanted more than anything to hold and meet her baby. It was a very intrusive request but my mother obliged. She asked if he would like to hold his unborn baby wrapped in a onesie and set it in his wife's arms himself, Amari and I, in the next room, heard the man's choked weeps. A shy woman tried to bribe my mother to 'accidentally lose' the ashes of her mother-in-law—mother said a polite no to that one.

I've seen my fair share of dead bodies. Amari and I often helped dress the dead. Mother told us how the chamber works, how columns of fire dry, contracts and chars the skin, muscle and hair and calcify bones. The remnants of tooth fillings, screws, hinges, and metal implants she'd find on the chamber platform. We learned some body restoration techniques (molding fake ears and noses with latex) and even how to sew gaping mouths shut before family viewings. When things were quiet, we'd pretend to be the fanged undead rising from our coffins.

Looking back, that upbringing was _so_ odd but I wouldn't have it any other way.

While my mother had reverence for the dead and the patience for the chaos of the living coping with dead that could rival a saint, she would spare none of that for us. Her dark, sarcastic sense of humor would come out in full force for her children. When she was shaky with fury at Amari and me for yet again disobeying her orders to not do something stupid and dangerous, she'd repeat her threat that if we died doing something dumb "No eulogies or funeral services for either of you. Straight cremation and I'll throw away your ashes with the chicken bones and corn husks. In fact, I won't shed a single tear."

Thanks ma.

May she rest in peace. She left far too soon. Among her final words she said, " _wallahae,_ though I do not wish to die so young, I never feared death."

When she passed, we did the cremation. We literally ran the machine ourselves. Amari tied the sleeping Huan to her back and together we cleaned her corpse, clothed her in the traditional white linen. Instead of invasive sewing, I closed her mouth by tying a scarf through her hair around her head.

It is traditional for men to lower the body into the casket, but our father was mourning. He sat in our home, unresponsive to us as if he were dead himself. While men in our building offered to help, we refused. So as two little girls with no adult supervision or help we carefully lay our mother's frail body into the casket. (Well, Huan was technically there but he snoozed through the whole thing.) First her legs and then her torso. We took frequent breaks carrying her casket to the cremation chamber.

The cremation process took nearly two hours. Amari handed me Huan and she swept the ashes. She sealed them in a black matte brass urn. As a final token, Amari unveiled three precious pieces of mother's jewelry: a gold ring family heirloom, the laurel leaf crown she wore on her wedding day and the necklace she never took off.

"Keepsakes. One for you. One for me and another for Huan for when he gets older," said Amari. I saw Huan's blackhead of hair nuzzle into her shoulder. He snored gently.

"You should get the ring, Amari," I said.

"It's my favorite, but it should go to Huan. He can give it to his spouse one day."

"Then you take the crown, Amari. It will look beautiful in your hair."

"Oh Saf, that leaves her chain, which is the plainest. I expected to give you the crown."

I rubbed the thin gold chain between my fingertips. I undo the clasp and fumble with it around my neck until it locks. It sat in the hollow of her neck but on my young body, the charm hits my sternum. "She wore it every day and I'll do the same."

* * *

The sight of cotton candy hair and icy blue eyes stimulates my senses and work as a great focal point after Paku's disorienting Memory Bomb.

"Give it another second," Paku silkily reassures. Is it like when you're drunk but lack self-awareness of the severity meanwhile everyone around you can you see doddering about? I think I'm holding it together well but my senses are still bumping into one another: I can hear _tart_ pink and taste a _bubbly_ neon blue, which reminds me of carbonated raspberry drink.

I can definitely confirm standing toe to toe Machi and I are the same height, though the wild stray ends of her hair give the illusion she is even larger. She exudes a large presence, like everyone in the Troupe, it seems. I didn't notice in the chamber before (too busy focusing on the needles) that she, like Paku, has a nice figure, when you observe up close. Sure, she lacks Paku's plunging neckline. Her uwagi hides her curves well, but not entirely. She's got 'em.

Her downturned eyes, angular brows, and small mouth rest in a permanent bitch face. Still somehow made her dangerously pretty to look at.

Machi switches on the light fixture that I didn't even realize was there. The fading rainbow light from the stained glass blanches and the lengthening shadows on the statues shrink away. Finally, the color super-senses fades and I taste the after notes of tomato and green onion from my sandwich, not blue and pink is just the color of Machi's hair again.

"Sah, let's not waste time." Her eyes are level with mine. "Do you know your nen category?"

I remember Abiji's water divination test. The full cup of rainwater and the scrap of palm leaf. "Transmuter."

Metamorphose, as it more directly means in Gortese: change the nature of your nen to mimic a substance and its natural properties.

"Think of transmutation like shape-shifter beasts morphing their bones, blood chemistry to capture the image of another," Abiji said to me once. "Like Khaan the bird with snake scales and feathers who can morph his breath into ice and fire on its whim."

"I'm also a transmuter," says Machi. "As is Feitan. It should be him training you, but for obvious reasons we decided I should get you started."

I've already seen glimpses of Feitan's transmutation abilities, and surveying Machi from the tops of her spiky hair to the bottom of her cotton shoes, I wonder, what can she morph her nen into?

I think of Khaan the snake-bird, and internally giggle at the thought of Feitan 'breathing' fire, what a coincidence if Machi, glacial blues, could breathe ice?

The word 'training' gives me the urge to stretch. I give my limbs a good shake and dirt, sand, grime I don't recognize rains from my robes all over the stone floor. Sand peppers Machi's stark white shoes.

A curt sigh from her but before I could apologize for my faux-pas she says, "Or, you can go shower and change your clothes if you want."

She kicks her shoes, dusting off the dirt.

I pinch my robes and peek under my collar, seeing truly how the non-white the outside of my robes had become compared to its original prim white.

Change clothes? Before I can ask, what can I change into? Not exactly like I brought a weekend bag-Machi sizes me up with a tilt of her head.

"I can spare you some clothes. We should be about the same size."

"I'll show you a bath you can use." Paku leads me into the hall while Machi goes to fetch towels and clothes for me.

I note my room by the fracture line in the masonry near the doorframe because barring minuscule aesthetic differences, there are no signs, markings or door numbers to help distinguish which hall leads where.

Paku opens the third door to the left (in the same hall thankfully) and politely lets me in first with a slight smile that says she knows I'll be pleased with what I see.

My first instinct is to crane my neck to take in the high details but the washroom's ceiling is much closer to the ground, compared to the sky-high roofs of the cathedral and even my chamber. The grace of the bathroom suggests that it is a renovation. The azure ottoman style tiles, the checkerboard monochrome on the floor and a single person tub with a shower. In the hall, I leave a foot trail where my feet disturbed the layer of dust but in the bathroom, my feet squeak from its immaculate cleanliness.

Paku plugs the tub and turns on the hot water. "It will be full by the time you're done showering."

Machi returns with towels and two hangers of clothes. The ladies leave me be with the rushing water and the steam filling the small ceramic bathroom.

Just taking off my robes and untying my hair covers the black and white tiles with a layer of dirt and sand. I promise to sweep it up later. I cleanse with zeal three times, my skin and scalp tingling from minty soap. The spraying hot water feels like purification of the traumatic day. The water and suds discolor, murky as it whirls down the drain.

I soak in the tub and if the shower purified my outsides, resting in the hot water cleanses my soul and mind. The heat seems to sink into the marrow of my bones, softening my muscles, organs, and blood. _Wallahae_ , I haven't relaxed in a tub like this since I was 17.

I eventually tear myself away from the tub, wrap myself with towels and gander at the clothes Machi brought. An uwagi but with sun yellow trim, long black trousers, and a burnt sienna obi belt. I can't stop petting the silk, watching the light cascade on the iridescent threads, scarlet in some angles, true orange in others.

I walk to my room, dressed but with my hair wrapped into a towel-beehive. I carry steam and the scent of evergreen mint shampoo, the closest I've smelled of real winter.

"Had a good bath?" says Machi without a hint of impatience. I still feel guilty for keeping her waiting. "Fix your uwagi."

My hair drapes like a curtain over my face as I unravel the towel. I flip the damp tresses over and finally peer down at my belt and uwagi. "Am I wearing it inside out? What's wrong with it?"

"Your sides are mixed up. Left goes over right unless you're attending your own funeral."

Truth be told, I had wrapped the right side over the left. I turn my back to her and fix it. "Is this a Japanese thing?"

Soft steps approach from behind. She pinches under my armpit at the excess of fabric. "Is it too loose? I can fix that."

I don't want her to go through the trouble. "I wouldn't call it too big. It's...breezy."

Her mouth refines to a pert dot. "Let me fix it. Hold this."

I obey and hold the extra fabric. There's a fingertip worth of excess.

Nen shrouds her whole body and as she runs her finger along the extra fabric, her warm vapory nen glides along my exposed arm, like a layer of steam. Her pupils shrink and she captures the image like a camera shot.

"Now hold still," she says. I hold but naturally become breathless as a statue as I watch the transmuter. From the pincushion with needles I likened to porcupine stingers earlier, she fabricates with a needlepoint a thread as neon blue as the street lights in downtown Zeoul.

"Nen stitches," she says, her nen charging in power, and she begins.

By the time my brain realizes the inhuman speed of her arm motions, the poking of the needle and the spirals of nen thread weaving into my uwagi she calmly says "there, done. Now for the other side."

With a resolute tug, she secures the spirals of thread into my uwagi, creating a flawless seam. Wait, where is the extra fabric? Did her nen eat it or what?

I hold my questions, figuring it best not to disturb her. I pinch the other side, determined not to blink and watch her work.

Blue flashes, like lightning, and the garment cinches into my waist.

"There, I'm satisfied with that," says Machi.

I awkwardly run my gloved hands along the new seam (seriously where did the extra fabric go?)

"What about those?" asks Machi, tilting her head again. "Your hands look like they're trapped in red bowling balls."

I don't doubt their bulkiness or their weight but they work. "Feitan wears them."

She gives a slight shudder. "Right. It's never a good sign if he conjures them. He can make the world burn."

I don't doubt that either.

"I'll make you new ones. Lighter and better fitting."

I let Feitan's gloves drop like bricks.

I just witnessed her use nen to sew but I hesitate to think just how she's going to make gloves out of thin air. After everything I've seen today, am I really that hard to convince that anything is possible?

"I know you don't like your hands touched, so," Machi says and extends her arms out and flares her fingers. "Hold like this and I promise I won't touch you."

I trust her and do as she asks.

Her perma-bitch face is compromised when she notices my livid right hand.

"What happened there?" Thanks to the shower and tub, my yellowy-purpley hand is also wrinkled which doesn't beautify its bruised state one bit.

"Blondie," I say.

Unlike Paku she understands the reference immediately. I appreciate her fatigued sigh.

"Anyway, hold still so I can start."

Once again I'm treated to the marvel of blue lightning flashes circling around my wrists, extending up the length and natural curling of my fingers, the threads taper around my fingertips and pad my palms. I watch hundreds or thousands of threads weave into zigzags, creating fabric literally out of thin air.

The neon blue burns my eyes but I don't blink once.

"Hai, there," says Machi. My hands are molten blue and the seams melt together and the nen seems to cool like smelted iron. The blue cools off into a matte black.

"What are you waiting for?" says Machi.

I flex my hands. What should I call this? Nen? Fabric? Whatever it is, it is softer than dough yet it flexes with my hands as smoothly as new skin.

Like with Feitan's gloves my nen nodes feel opened up until my wrist bone and from my wrist to my nails, the nodes are swept shut.

"Your nen nodes aren't shut, but forced into a state of zetsu."

I've heard that word before and can sort of guess what it means in this context. I figure it can't hurt to ask. "What's zetsu?"

Machi must have been thudded in the gut judging by the abrupt release of hot air. "Danchou wasn't joking. How well do you know your nen concepts?"

More perforated with holes than Swiss cheese. The annoying part is that I don't know _nothing_ , Abiji gave me a start on all the concepts but to her dismay could not lead me to mastery. With nen a broad knowledge of all but mastery of none is virtually useless. "Spotty at best."

"Well, I knew what I was getting into."

I gather my hair into a damp ponytail and my gloved hand runs along my bare collar as I move my hair away. "Oh, Danchou said my things would be returned."

Machi nudges her chin. "Over there."

Set on the table next to my water pitcher and half-eaten sandwich are my things. I see my map, riddled with pen notes and my wrench and my neckcha—wait.

Nerves in my stomach, but I check the pile again. My map and my square wrench. No chain.

I check a third time and shake my map and wrench, hoping the chain would drop with a metallic plop. No chain.

Painful nerves and jitters drill all the way to my arms.

Machi's spiky shadow looms over. "Something wrong?"

I hold it together and take a composing breath, all marvel and relaxation, the good feeling I had spent. "Did Danchou give you these?"

"He gave the items to Feitan who then entrusted them to me, said I might as well hand them back."

Even as malleable as Machi's amazing nen gloves are, they still crack from how tight my hands ball into fists.

I'm not fast and I hate running and yet I flew across the structure. They are not in the grand cathedral but despite holy structure's vast size, I find them by their voices in the southern end. The halls and ceilings narrow the further you get from the grand cathedral, like arteries narrowing to capillaries. I face a shut door and all but kick it off its hinges.

My juncture with Pakunoda was for the purpose to demonstrate to her and everyone in the troupe that I am NOT a parakeet to upset in a cage so that I'd go careening loosely and yet now all I'm missing are the beak and feathers.

The chatter doesn't pause but the atmosphere changes, I know it, when I trudge into the lounge. A circle table with Nobunaga, Uvogin and Phinks reclining with a bored leisure I hadn't yet seen of them. A plethora of empty green cans that reek of cheap beer.

My new gloves crack when my fists tighten. " _Where_ is it?" My Gortese inflections creep in with my emotion and the Japanese vowels and consonants roll like boulders down a steep hill.

A braying sound from Nobunaga that reverberates in his half-empty can, and a whoop from Uvogin, his plump lips rounded into an O shape.

"Where is _what_?" asks Blondie, throwing his arms behind his head.

"My chain."

"Beats me." A lie. Blondie is a horrid liar. And he's not trying to lie well.

"Do you even know what she's talking about Nobu? I sure as hell don't," says Uvo and I can't tell if he is being sincere, the way he scratches his chin looks genuine. "Why is she dressed like Machi all of a sudden?"

"One of you took it," I say.

"So what if someone did?" says a ghoulish voice behind me.

We're in an enclosed space so the rush of wind at my feet I recognize to be Feitan's superhuman gait. I turn around and meet poison purple eyes and his trademark skull and crossbones collar.

"Heeeeh," hums Shalnark, haphazardly balancing a fresh batch of green cans that could tumble from his arms at any moment with the slightest mistake. "Someone's angry and exuding some intense murderous aura. Ohhh, Safra is that your murderous aura? I didn't recognize it but wasn't sure, ya know? Your face is still quite stoic despite your pungent bloodlust."

Have you ever been told to never tap the glass of a fish tank because it's torturous for the fish swimming inside? Shalnark is that asshole kid rapping on the glass, observing the disturbance from his bewildering tap.

"Where is it, Feitan?" If he so chose, my head would be rolling on the ground before I see him untuck his pocketed hands, yet my feet are rooted with conviction to the ground.

Only the slightest indication of movement comes from his words billowing like velvet against his collar. "We are thieves. We steal. When we want something, we take it."

I stick two fingers between the tight gap between my wrist and the hem of my glove and start to peel it off—my hand flies on its own.

Blue nen strings and a needle cut into my arm, conducting it like a marionette.

"Don't you dare take that glove off."

I see Machi. Judging by her sharp gaze, and her threads sharp as a sword against my skin, it would be unwise for me to argue.

"Drop it for now, Safra," she says.

Shalnark sidesteps Machi's threads in the door frame. Feitan, a ghoul if they so exist, breaks the standoff with me and stalks by with Shalnark.

The uncanny sensation of being watched beckons me to pause and turn. I meet gazes with Feitan and Phinks and I just know my chain from my late mother is hidden in their clutches. The jitters now drills down my thighs and only because Machi is by my side I dint turn around and break all hell.

"Don't pick fights with the enhancers," murmurs Machi once we move out of earshot. "Or anyone for that matter. It's against the rules."

"I wasn't starting a fight."

"Yes you were," she says. "You nearly broke and gave them what they wanted."

"They want to fight me?"

"Maybe on some level, but they want to get a rise out of you."

"Well, I know one of them is hiding my chain," I say. "Blondie or that ghoul over there."

"And?" she says with a harshness that cuts like her nen threads. "You expect them to give it back to you because you marched over there?"

Honestly, no but I couldn't bear to do nothing. "I thought they weren't allowed to antagonize me anymore. I may not be a member but aren't we supposed to be comrades?"

"They _are_ comrades," Machi says dryly.

I know I'm bringing too much Gortese context to the word comrade. To me, comrade means countrymen, precious friends you cannot lose, and the family you choose. If these bandits steal amongst each other and comrades than I dare not think of what befalls those they consider enemies.

"There is a truce," she adds. "Despite some bad friction, but they can't and won't harm you."

"What about my chain?"

"Don't worry. It's the item of jeopardy. They won't destroy it or hock it. Getting a rise out of you is more valuable than the literal value of your chain."

I am still nettled from my outburst. After holding my composure amazingly well for a person under my circumstances, I show how fragile I really am.

"It's an unspoken rule that whoever you brings to the Troupe, you bear the responsibility for them. You joined because they brought you here. So they won't go easy on you," says Machi. "It may not feel like it right now, but they're treating you like an equal."

"Equal?"

"What Feitan said: We are thieves. We steal. When we want something, we take it."

What does that have to do with me? "They can't just do that."

Machi rolls her eyes back. "Those two would. I wouldn't, not to make the point."

"What point?"

"I already told you, loud and clear: when we want something, we take it. What you do with that information is up to you."

Silence, not even the sandy winds whirl outside. I touch my bare neck. So to get it back, I have to _steal_ it back. From _those_ two. How in the nine hells am I supposed to manage that?!

Machi must have seen the steam puffing from my ears and while I'm not feeling particularly optimistic, her following words I interpret as a helping hand offering to pull me from the slumps.

"Now, if you want some semblance of a chance, let's get to work on your nen."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the initiation plan. Safra has to steal her keepsake back and it's an unenviable position. Despite the chapter name, the majority of this chapter was 'look how cool Machi is with her nen'. If she can sew nerves, muscle, and skin back together, tailoring an uwagi should be no sweat for her right? Like I did with Safra's ability, I'm gonna play around with the troupe powers. Strength is cool an' all but I enjoy how it's a power/magic system that flourishes with creativity.
> 
> This gearing up to be a longish fic. We haven't even reached Chrollo's caper or the main villains ;)
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos since the last update :)


	11. Newbie x Chores

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Safra and Machi commence training with the most basic of basics and newbie always gets the grunt work.

"Nen is the imposition of your will. You sharpen it until it becomes a natural skill and strengthen it like a muscle with consistent practice. When you have a  _lot_ of will, Safra, nen is easy for you," says Machi, shrouded in  _Ten_. After my failed face off with Feitan and Phinks, she led us to another vacant chamber in the cathedral. I swear there are enough rooms in this maze of a structure to house everyone in Meteor City and then some.

We sit and she starts me from the basics. ("If your foundations are weak, it won't matter how tall you build," she said.) So we began with the most basic of basics:  _Ten._

("What's  _Ten_?" I had said, earning a sigh from her. "You know  _Ten._ If you didn't Phinks wouldn't have that mangle on his wrist. Do  _this._ " Machi doused her whole body with a second skin of vapory nen and I matched it after recognizing the technique but not the word. "See? You know it. You probably don't know the names of the concepts in Japanese. Remind me to snatch a Gortese dictionary.")

"For example, your will arrives in spades when your life was in danger. You were able to bind your nen to Phinks' arm and with another second of chance, you would have detonated it, causing immense damage. But, your will is not enough."

"I thought you said I have plenty of nen when I will it?"

"Your will at the moment was powerful and simple. It was  _blow up this arm I_ _'m touching_ , but could you have been selective? Could you have made only his stomach burst? Or made him go blind?"

Those are all  _excellent_ suggestions for getting my keepsake back…

Machi sighs again, and I've learned that reaction from her is her growing weary from stating the obvious. However she maintains a cool, matter-of-fact tone with me that never transitions into snitty condescension. "Safra, you don't even realize how unaware you are of your own aura. You can mask your emotions well on your face, but your aura squeals your inner throes." She narrows her icy blue eyes and some impatience does manage to seep into her voice. "And taper that malicious aura already! Even if it isn't directed at me, unchecked murderous aura is unsettling."

Shalnark had said something similar in the lounge. I peer down at my lime-yellow aura that conflicts with the warm tones of my orange obi. I test it by picturing Fei and Phinks and my vacuous aura spikes like pine nettles. You could read my murderous aura from space. Each time their faces flashed unbidden in my head, my malicious aura must have flared like flames splashed with gas.

My turn to sigh as I use the only nen concept I've mastered.  _Mien_  chases away the mental fog and my tensed muscles relax as if they're deeply exhaling pent-up pressure.

"Was that  _Mien_?" asks Machi and I nod. Without an ounce of sarcasm, coming from a place of humility, "You're gonna have to show me how to do that later."

If I were the blushing type, I might have at that moment.

We hold  _Ten_ for ages but I feel Machi's razor-sharp vision magnifying on specific points on my body and aura. I don't fathom why until she pokes a firm finger on seemingly random points on my arm, knee and shoulder.

"What sort of life did you live before you arrived in Meteor City? What kind of childhood did you have?"

I was a rambunctious child with a daredevil sister, I tell her and she snorts a dry laugh.

"That much is clear from the compromised state of your nen body.  _Ten_ is a good place to start for it is naturally a defensive technique. It slows aging, hastens the creation of new cells and helps repair damage. Now think of your body as a highway, when the roads are smooth, travels are easy, right? But when there's a collision or the roadways are pulverized, it's an obstruction of the path right?"

I sense where this is going…I've been scolded for this already before.

"From what I can see, your nen body is riddled with obstructions that never properly healed. Why your master didn't go over with it you I'll never know, but for the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume they had bigger fish to fry."

I don't tell Machi that she  _had_ and that there used to be even more marring my body in my early nen days. ("Seriously, how stupid can a person be? How stupid are you? How are you still in one piece?!" Abiji Nha had cursed in her rare fits when a few of my childhood stories rendered her befuddled. True she had forgone advanced healing work to target my mental health and healing it with Mien.)

"Anyway, you'll have better nen circulation and working with a well-oiled machine is easier than one ruined by rust." I catch the direction of her eyes on my lap—at my gloves. "Take those off and use  _Ten._ "

The nen gloves Machi had constructed with meticulous precision cut the nen circulation at my wrists, as intended. I'm sluggish as I peel them off and nen swarms my fingertips and over my palms. I flatten the wrinkles in my gloves in my lap.

I interlace my fingers together as if to keep my hands warm, but it's actually a coping mechanism if I'm honest.

Machi pauses. She shuts her eyes to contain an urge to comment but I sense a topic diversion. "Sah, let's continue with  _Ten_ and fix that bad circulation."

* * *

Machi's humor is subtle I've noticed. She jokes there is a faster way to heal by nen body, but that would involve slicing me open with a scalpel, then she would use her nen threads to fix the misshapes in bone, loosen strains in muscle, reset nerves and sew everything in typical supersonic Machi-fashion, good as new. Decorated with a giant neon blue nen ribbon. My eyes twinkle with curiosity and she immediately squashes the idea.

"That wasn't supposed to be a serious suggestion," she says with a hand pressed against her hip. "And  _don_ _'t_ sulk," she says as I deflate. "I love convenience, but there's a warning to heed: the cheap comes out expensive and the haste makes waste."

"So we're taking this training nice and slow?"

"Not necessarily. I don't want to make waste, but I also want to work  _efficiently_  according to your needs. Everyone is different and nen isn't one size fits all."

That's the seamstress in her talking.

Machi supervises my  _Ten_  for an hour before ordering me back to my room to rest for an  _early morning_.

I already feel springier, a significant improvement from  _Ten_. My bruised hand looked less discolored and the tightness in my back muscles relaxed like I had received a massage.

I go to bed with sunlight on the horizon and awaken a few hours later with light returning.

It's only five am and day has broken. Summer days stretch for forever in Meteor City. I know all about longitude and latitude, (No, don't believe the rumor, East Gortese do NOT, in fact, believe the world is flat…) but my internal clock, set by living near the equator where days are consistent year round, still hasn't gotten over the fact that it can be nearing 22:00 and it's still as bright as it was at 16:00. Hearing the words  _midnight sun_ is one thing, opening your curtains at facing at the orange light's persistent twinkle on the horizon is another.

Machi greets me with a sheepish yawn as she leans sedately against the wall and I think it's cute. Rubbing her eyes, her head hanging heavy as she refrains from falling asleep midstep. I remember the beers the others polished off in the lounge-had she joined them after our training?

For breakfast, we eat a powdery soup ("Miso" Machi called it) with seaweed and tofu and a small bowl of rice-all of which I eat precisely half. Machi grips her green tea with tea with two hands, blowing across the steaming brim, half asleep. She's practically incoherent, she barely utters a single muffled word throughout breakfast. I'm not fresh as a daisy either so I welcome the silence.

Part of me wonders, why bother with early rising anyway?

"You better get your robes on because you're going outside," she says.

"Oh, to dig up landmines?" I use a safety pin from Machi to secure my scarf into place.

She doesn't answer but she manages another yawn.

She bulldozes one of the twin doors of the grand entrance open. The door hinges cry but she's so strong that she makes the endeavor appear effortless. We're similar in build, same in height but my dodgy math would say compared to me, she is an ant who could bench press a hundred times her own weight.

Sand dusts my shoes and even in the dim slate sky, my eyes burn from being adjusted to the low light of the cathedral. I gaze upon the landscape, drearily reminded of calculating the damage after a beating monsoon.

The sand-tsunami, the sky to the ground wall of sand had produced new hills and a changed terrain. Post-sandstorm Meteor City resembles toy blocks nearly buried, no,  _drowned_  in a sandbox. Even the infamous junk dunes are blanketed in sand. The cathedral is on the periphery of the city and yet the garbage rank still punches me in the nose with vengeance. Only calm winds, the quietest I've ever witnessed of Meteor City, that is, until I start coughing.

Machi is as cool as a cucumber while I'm a hacking, shapeless fabric mass in my robes and scarf.

Despite my pitiful state, Machi shows no mercy when she throws a long tool with a broad blade and handle at my chest, which I barely have the senses to catch.

A shovel?

My mouth falls agape when I realize what's going on and I groan behind my scarf.  _Not again_ _…_

She jabs her finger at the hilly terrain. "Newbies clear the path after sandstorms. And don't you dare pay someone to do it for you," she says and hops back inside. She bolts the door and leaves me, impassive and alone with the disquieting dawn in an ocean of sand.

* * *

This. Fucking. Sucks. It's been two hours and I have made minuscule progress. It's as futile as trying to shovel water into separate piles; the sand just meshes together into a grainy mess. As soon as I have a respectable pile, the gusts mock me and undo my work.

I'd prefer the impossible task of draining the North sea over  _this_.

I'm not even technically a newbie. I didn't technically join their crime cult. This is a farce. I wipe the sweat from my forehead, my throat dryer than the desert before me.

I've had three offers from eager would-be contractors from town, with their rumbling sand-blowers, dropping prices like a coin in a well. Trust me, I wanted to say if this wasn't supposed to be…I don't know an initiation or stamina building exercise, I would have said yes to the first guy before the words finished leaving his mouth.

I stab my shovel into the sand and plop onto a mound, grains scattering against my weight. The frequent winds have done more to clear the path (and more to undo my work) than I have in the last hour. I wish there was a faster way to do this.

Sand acts a bit like water doesn't it? It mounds until there are oceans of it, forever in motion and migration. It rains over homes in a storm, on the wind it rides like steam and it can drown you if it wills it. I grab a handful. The sand spills from my hand, though the color of storm clouds, the sand on closer inspection is a heterogeneous mix of gray and black grains, red dirt, fragments of hermit shells and dried bark, tougher than meat jerky.

I take comfort in the reality that advancing sand dunes are a never-ending problem for Meteor City. If complaining about the weather is the key to small talk in the other cities, complaining about shoveling sand is the icebreaker in Meteor City. Landscaping is one of the survival and economic pillars of the city and without a constant force fighting the granular invaders, Meteor City would be dry swallowed like a pill within a matter of weeks.

It's a shitty problem, but it's not only  _my_ problem. There are hundreds of people if not thousands enduring as I am at this precise moment.

Misery loves company right?

"You're not going to get anything done if you keeping sitting on your ass all day," says a voice behind me.

The Samurai, Nobunaga, up earlier than I would have expected after he and the others demolished the towers of beer cans yesterday that on sight alone could have given me a terrible hangover. His hair is twisted up at the crown, ends flaring out, resembling an awkward palm tree.

Few things are more aggravating than a false accusation of laziness. Watching how easily he leaps the crests of the mounds like a frog skipping lily pads without the heavy cover to breathe, I sulk even more. The sun glows on his bare cheek and he breathes in deeply and exhales through his nose,  _enjoying_ the fresh smell of sand and garbage, and smiles at the breezy landscape. "Beautiful day."

Meanwhile, the air literally stings my lungs and the exposed minuscule parts of my cheeks.  _Ugh,_  I shudder. I. Hate. him.

"Where are you going?" I ask. It's close to midmorning at this point not that that fact really matters. Everything starts early and ends late in Meteor City.

He huffs as if he's doing me a favor by answering my question. "The markets," he says, and his thin sword  _chiks!_ as he balances the hilt on his shoulder.

He trains his unblinking gaze on me. Even slacken, his features carry an attentive air, judging the world as he peered down at it from his hooked nose.

He sees the shovel sticking out lopsided in the sand. The only thing to add the perfect touch to my sign of defeat is to tie a white flag at its end.

He scoffs, a high pitch  _heeh!_  "You're just working with that shovel? Why are you making it so hard for yourself?"

"It's what Machi gave me and I'm not supposed to hire additional help."

He tuts, stroking the wiry hairs on his jutted chin. With his haughty, imperious stance, and elegant kimono, he really resembles a feudal Samurai. "You think  _you_  need additional help?  _Yare yare_."

"Are you calling me lazy again?"

"I would give you a hint, but Machi swears you'll figure it out on your own."

"Figure what out?"

His robe falls open and he scratches his chest. "I'll check on your progress when I return in a few hours. Be careful little bud. Get overzealous and the sand might swallow you whole before you can bloom."

What did Machi say? I don't have time to ask before he turns and  _springs_  up the slopes. Why do I have to dig up a path when  _they_ obviously have no trouble hiking the mounds?

I groan once he's out of earshot and I wish a sinkhole would form underneath and eat me alive. Ok, that's dramatic. Sinkholes, especially underwater, are bad (I definitely do not recommend) and 100% not fun to wriggle out of. Don't ask me how I know…

Despite Nobunaga's urgency, I slump in the sand more, watching the airborne sand curl like smoke then avalanche down slopes from the winds blowing to the South East. I hold up sand and it seems to dematerialize into steam. I'm like Feitan, I imagine, creating heat from my very hands.

Machi's threads can sew broken bones and Feitan kindles heat from thin air—all interesting in their unique ways. I bet they could figure out a way to deal with the sand with their nen. Feitan could probably melt the sand, Machi could probably fabricate a super shovel. How about the others? Phinks, Uvogin, Franklin are big dudes in good shape and probably wouldn't tire after an hour of physical activity unlike yours truly... Danchou? He could probably just use his charms to convince other people to do it or literally charm the sand away.

Where does that leave me? What are explosions good for? Blowing up bodies, demolishing old buildings, blasting craters into the ground, displacing a bunch of earth for new architectural development, destruction.

_Arr! Arr!_

I peer above and squint at crows circling the sun. Today isn't different from my days spent digging up land mines and yet my frustration started at 6/10 and is mounting.

I peel off my left glove and run my hand through the sand and really feel it and watch it fall in grains and smoke. Grains trap themselves under my nails and pepper my palm. I haven't played in the sand since I was a kid with Huan. Before his leg was mangled, he was a voracious swimmer and begged me to take him to the beach every day.

He'd swim for hours while I would watch from shore, usually burying myself in the sand, displacing giant heaps of sand by digging ankle breaking craters in the sand—

Wait a minute.

My fingers claw into the sand and I channel a marble of explosive nen the depth of the length of my arm into the grains. I scoot away and shut my eyes.

_BOOPH!_

Sand splashes my robes and I almost swallow a mouthful, but what I see, through carefully distended lids as the smoke clears, makes me smile: a crater with a black jagged ring of singed sand. The depth of ten shovel sweeps done in an instant. I stand up and double check the draft of the wind by reading the wrinkling on the lee slopes: still South-East.

…Should I? It  _could_  work. It could also go horribly wrong because it's a ridiculous scheme, but it  _could_ work. So…should I?

Familiar jitters drill through me, the creeping of a speeding high that would propel me into the stratosphere when Amari dared me to pull off a stunt. If left unchecked, the excitement would goad me to climb to the top of the world; I would feel stupendous, invincible, like a god. But those especially reckless days belonged in my youth. If I could reign in a restrained 20% of that high and guide it with some good sense, it's enough of an innervation for some creative risk. I will admit. Mentally I'm a  _tad_ frazzled from the last two days, but I'm still mostly calm and there's nothing wrong with channeling that energy into something useful right?

I'll be sure to meditate with  _Mien_  tonight, and I'll return to my rightful calm self.

But for now, if I stick with a marble size, slowly increase the yield as needed, work with the wind,  _wallahae,_ I'll be done before Samurai returns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Nothing is wrong. Everything is peachy. Nothing to see here or remember later...
> 
> Oh lookie, Nobu!
> 
> So I realized that Safra in many ways is acting like Elsa from the beginning of Frozen. The whole reliance on gloves, keeping lofty appearances, fear of destructive potential of powers, but no catchy emotion-provoking tunes or castles. Ok, maybe one castle... ;)


	12. Castle of Sand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Training takes a pause while Safra leaves to confirm the death of her comrade, despite warnings from Phinks and Feitan.

"Ma?"

Commotion pulls me from bed into the living room. I switch on a lamp and squint when warm light washes the room. Three-month-old Huan is nuzzled against my mother's neck as she tugs, judging by the white light of the moon in the open windows, the curtains.

She doesn't face me head on until I yawn by her side, "Ma, do you want me to take Huan off your hands for a while?"

I count the tree rings in her brown eyes for they are open so wide.

She finally blinks. "I'm fine Saf. I can watch him all night. He's so precious. He sleeps so much! Just knocks right out!"

"Do you need to sleep?" I ask. She's in her pajamas which means she tried but failed to sleep.

"No, I just did laundry, everyone's laundry, the towels, the extra bedsheets, the pillows, the curtains too. They've been so musty for a while. Should I vacuum? I think I'll start vacuuming."

"It's kind of late and it will make a lot of noise."

"What time is it? Is it late?"

"It's three in the morning."

"Oh, that would be toooo noisy.  _Wallahae_ , what was I thinking?" She palms her forehead with a loud smack. "You must think I'm such a nutter. Nutty Miran Jung, waking up the whole building with vacuuming at three in the morning. What would Jiyeon Park below have to say again? She thinks I'm cuurrazy."

I shake my head. "She's ugly as a skunk though."

My mother tries to withhold a laugh with her hand, dropping the curtain in the process.

"It's true. She has a flat nose and her ears are bigger than an elephant."

"Should I start breakfast then? Or should I read? I'm thinking of starting a hobby. I think I could start writing a novel. Should I write a novel tonight? I used to write loads. Huan sleeps so much I have all this energy and I have nothing to do. Should I iron laundry?"

"You could. Let me take Huan."

She hands me the sleeping newborn.

"I think I'll start with the curtains."

I yawn, holding Huan's head on my shoulder while my mother takes the heavy curtains to the iron board.

I watch her begin with fast strokes on the dark fabric.

Last thing I know is that I'm keeping a distended eye on my mother but then jolt to my feet when I sniff burning. She's gone and there's a curl of smoke from the iron on the board. There is a smoking V of singed cotton fibers on my spare pillowcase.

I had dozed off and she had walked away, probably cavorting somewhere. I hear her voice with the sounds of night. She's on the balcony, fiddling with plastic buckets, and talking to herself.

Huan's tiny nostrils flare from the burn I presume, but he sleeps without disturbance. I unplug the iron and hide it under the sink.

"Saf, I was just thinking about how I dragged the curtain on the carpet but it's so heavy I should have folded it and carried it whole I'm such a nutter but then I realized how dirty the carpet must be and I thought I should wash the carpet now thinking about it should I iron the carpet? I lay Huan on the carpet earlier. He must be dirty. I should give him a bath."

She holds her arms out to take Huan. I hold a finger to my lips. "He's sleeping," I whisper. I think of what I've used in the past to soothe her. "We can go for a walk instead."

She brightens at the idea. I take Huan with me for good measure. He gently snores next to my ear. The kid will sleep through anything.

* * *

Clearing the path hadn't been enough to spend the energy that had poured into my system and I needed something desperately to do with my hands.

"Shoo! Go away you blasted birds!" A pair of ravens had taken interest in my meticulous sand structure and perched themselves on its walls. Their beaks prodded and claws pierced the wet sand, sending clumps of my hard work tumbling down.

_Sheesh_ , now where was I? This window is bugging me that tower is the bane of my existence those flower bushes need sprucing up I thought I liked them that way but maybe I'm in a  _wisteria_  mood not roses that gargoyle is smiling not at  _all_ intimidating I'll need wetter sand to—

"What the  _heck_  is that?"

A long shadow looms over me and my creation.

The jarring intrusion jerks me off balance. It's been ages that I've lost myself in a project and enclosed myself in a hyper-focused bubble and excluded my surroundings. I hadn't even heard footsteps slosh in the sand.

I put down my chisel (a dry scrap of bark) and face Nobu, who cradles gently a long bundle wrapped in brown paper and clear cello wrap.

His katana, suddenly an over-sized accessory, is belted at his waist.

I move out of the way to show off my handiwork. "It's a structure I built. There's a courtyard here a spire there the modest beginnings of a rose garden here but I may change it—"

He actually leans on his back foot, overwhelmed by the divulging. "It's a sand castle," he says dryly, cutting me off and my will to share deflates like popped balloons. An instant buzz-kill.

"I see you've finished your chore," he says. "What do you think? Is this the sort of training you had in mind?"

From the change in tone from flippant to deferred and the swerved direction of his voice, I realize he's not wasting his breath on me.

Foot flipped to the cathedral wall, Machi observes staidly in the shade, holding out for the appropriate moment. She doesn't strike me as someone who poses for a grand entrance, but rather waits for her environment to address her.

How long has she been standing there, arms crossed? She's perfectly stealthy even with her pink hair and white uwagi she miraculously blended into the crumbling facade.

Why build a cathedral with decorative carving in the desert? In the same way exposed stones in the desert are chiseled through relentless winds and sand, mimicking the abrasion of sandpaper, the facade and brick walls of the Tuscan structure have been buffed smooth to the touch. The carved peoples had lost their faces; their bodies reduced to shapeless mounds. This cathedral is one of the first buildings ever raised in Meteor City from how its historic character juxtaposes with the indistinct utilitarian block apartments. Though a cathedral in definition, the nave can't stretch ore than 20 meters tall, a midget compared to other altitudinous buildings in my history books. It's barely tall enough to supply shade as I carved my sand castle.

I had learned historically cathedrals were built to be the tallest man-made structure in townships, that the tallest would be reserved for the structure linking the town to the heavens.

The irony isn't lost on me that the loftiest structure in all of Greater Meteor City is the Council Head Quarters.

"You were productive, Safra," says Machi, her tone not betraying her stoic stance. "How did you do it?"

I prattle about the marble of explosive nen that I would bury into the ground, not too deep for the ground would sink in on itself (remember: sinkholes=bad), nor too high for it would waste too much energy. I cooperated with the tangential winds that helped deliver the sand further south, behind the cathedral into the desert expanse. I didn't stop until I reached the bedrock, curiosity piqued of how far I could go, and the flagstone surrounding the cathedral. I point to the black soot rings in the sand that looked like remnants of dozens of campfires, a curly map of my progress. I say it all with one breath.

"How did you figure that scheme out?" asks Nobunaga. He balances the crinkling bundle and the wind catches notes of green and floral. He's too tall for me to surreptitiously peek into the brown wrap without looking nosy.

"I've seen what explosives can do and when the shovel wasn't working I just tried something."

"Paku noticed the same thing," says Machi, the cool pace of her words contrasting the fast flow of mine. "She says you try when the opportunity presents itself."

"Heh, just tried?" he says, trilled r's and chopped verbs galore. "Isn't that a bit of a risk, rookie?"

Dang does Nobu speak in rough masculine Japanese, exaggerating his consonants. Whereas Danchou speaks eloquently, betraying the Mafia stereotype I would have expected with the troupe, Nobu speaks fluent ruffian.

"You  _told_  me to try this. You're the one who hiked through here, suggesting I try my nen without a shovel." The thoughts in my head zoom like a car on a highway. I need to get out of this sun and cool off.

"She does this, Nobu," says Machi. "When she cares and wills it, she has plenty of nen and owns the resourcefulness to try."

"Wrong, Machi," says Nobu. "The word you're looking for is  _whim_. Reckless at that."

"I knew what I was doing," I say. "I kept the yield small and only detonated one at a time." I'll admit the thought of working EVEN FASTER crossed my speeding mind a thousand times. But I was restrained, not entirely beholden to my whims.

"Why am I being scolded for doing as you wanted?"

"Is your name Machi?" snaps Nobu, his sharp words  _whoosh_ like a drawn blade slicing through the air. I back down from the heat of his deceptively dull gaze. "I didn't address you with that question, newbie."

The muscles from my jaw to my temples lock painfully as I hold in the verbal onslaught just egging to blurt from my mouth.

"You say resourceful, I say reckless, which is it?" he says and I can't tell if he's trying to egg Machi into an argument or just preaching from his soapbox. "Only time will tell," he says determined to have the final word. He carts himself and his mysterious bundle inside. The hem of his kimono vanishes behind the heavy door and as it rattles shut, I release the tension in my jaw and Machi puffs.

"That's him paying you a compliment," she says and I balk.

"He all but told me to use nen and he knows the nature of my nen."

"I know," she says. "It's very hard to please him and even harder for him to outright compliment you. That was a covert compliment."

I heard no compliment.

"Reckless and reactive is the nature of your nen and yet you were calculative. If I notice that, he did too."

"Then what's with the weird reverse psychology?"

Machi sighs with baggage of something she had felt a long time. "The enhancers have an odd way of showing their approval. Nobu especially knows  _all_ about reckless. He trained with Uvo, whose way of showing that he cares involves beating the crap out of you."

I instinctively hear Uvo's  _chomp_ at my ear and shudder.

"In Nobu-language, he was acknowledging your power and urging you to take your nen seriously."

Oh, he could have simply uttered that outright.

"I know, why didn't he just say that?" says Machi, hinted with her subtle humor. "Maybe he thought you wouldn't have listened."

It creeps me out when she does that.

"If I decide to forge my path with a less reactive nen substance, he won't need to worry or waste his psychology on me," I say, half in jest.

An irritated tick in Machi's stance. So slight I almost miss it, but I've been honing in on her body language. Each tick, nudge, jut, blink speaks volumes from her. I said something she did not like.

"Has this experience prompted you to change your substance?"

"I still haven't decided," I say, fidgeting with my scarf.

"That isn't something to say indecisively," she says, tension tightening her shoulders. "What is on your mind?"

Too many things. "I don't know," I say, watching wind dull the intricate points of my castle. "I grasp the point of this exercise: show me the versatility of my nen, that it doesn't have to be all about destruction, and problem-solving. But I still…I don't know. I didn't naturally choose my nen. It chose me, all based on exposure I couldn't help. It's not fair."

"May I be blunt?

I steel the last shreds of my pride and nod.

"You didn't choose your nen, but you can't mourn that forever. By your substance naturally choosing you, you bypassed a frequent problem with Transmuters: choosing wrong. Oh, it can happen and it's a disaster. Picking a bad fitting nen is like trying to run in shoes a size too large."

She points a nimble finger, gnarled at the tip from thread work, at me.

"I watched you, Safra. How you sprang into action after Nobu's nudge. You experimented, calculated, you even played." She snipes a glance at my castle. "So stop pitying yourself and accept your nen as it developed. I can fix the fundamental problems with your technique, but I cannot force you to care."

Ever been that kid that frustrated your teachers? They told you that you have talent and natural skill but no matter what they said 'if you just cared you'd have all the potential to accomplish your dreams?' Well, it's not that I don't care, I don't see the truth in their words. I know I am smart-ish. I know I am capable. I wouldn't have survived working with explosives if I weren't. And it wasn't all dumb luck. It was skill and my nen working to keep me alive.

Is it that I don't care or that I merely don't care about what you want me to care about? No that's not it doesn't make sense I can't keep my whirling thoughts straight they're torpedoing into each other—

"Safra," says a distant voice in the fog. "Safra?" A finger drums my shoulder.

Think before speaking, but I can't form a coherent thought.

"I need...water."

I turn away before being dismissed from the exchange with Machi. I feel her cold eyes watch me with disappointment, disapproval, disdain, I don't want to know. Not because I don't care.

I feel like I've had three cups of coffee. I need to slow down and meditate.

Relax. Speak to her later and explain. Tell her you were dehydrated or something...

I remained too excited, too long up in the stratosphere and I need to return to Earth—

The lounge is closer than my room so I dart there. I unhook the safety pin and the sand spills as it billows off my face. I peel off my robes and bundle them into a heap.

High tar smoke. My dismay is so profound I feel it churning with the dregs of breakfast in my stomach.

There are two, the last two I care to see, sitting with leisure in the lounge. There is a towel on Phinks' shoulders as one would after hitting the gym and a cigarette lit between his fingers. Feitan broods with his eyes shut, but I notice the slightest nudge of his long lashes when I enter their quarters.

I march straight for the sink, squishing against the counter with my robe-scarf bundle. Zero shame, I drink from the faucet. The water gushes ice cold against my lips and it soothes my heated heart. I shut my eyes and  _Mien_  drags the entire world and my spitfire thoughts to a calm, gentle snail's pace. Heart rate slows, the whole world slows finally.

The two give me a look of recognition. They've been there, sweltering heat so quenching they couldn't wait to pick up a glass to drink.

Still, they snip because they can.

"Use a glass like a civilized human," says Phinks, patting his dry forehead as a forced show of cleanliness as if it were still greasy with sweat.  _Civilized_  digs deep in me. After hearing a plethora of stereotypes about East Gortese and our alleged 'stone-age' and 'barbaric' way of life, (all false!) I can't decide if there's subtext in his words or it's just a cheap dig for not using a glass.

"Machi can add that to her list for training," says Feitan.

I mop my mouth with my glove, not feeling dignified, yet I don't care.

"Maybe I can someday learn how to transmute fucks to give," I say.

They both snit in their unique ways, Feitan's firecracker hiss and Phinks' brusque grunt.

I gather my bundle and begin to shuffle out, intending on meditating in my room. I better do it before Machi assigns me more grunt work. Welcome to Meteor City, I hear in Fazier's chipper voice.

Wait. Fazier.

I turn around. "Fazier... You never told me what you did with his body. Did you at least bury him in a shallow grave?" Most people, even if they weren't trained to handle the dead, would at least attempt a simple grave. Also shouldn't crime goons at least have the duty of 'cleaning' the scene afterward?

Phinks doesn't have a brow to hike but a muscle quirks up. He takes a drag from his cigarette.

"Sorry, we didn't touch him." From him, it wasn't an apology.

I grasp the door frame for balance. I should meditate before taking on an emotionally provocative, overstimulating activity. Yet I dust my sand stained robes and with a weary sigh throw them over my uwagi.

"You found him where?" I stick my head through and reshape my ponytail. "I'll do it myself."

"Don't," says Phinks.

"Don't what?"

Phinks scowls balefully,  _don't even ask_  but I don't budge. "Dont waste your time. He was your ally. We get it. But you can't do anything for him now. His body is mangled and it's been there for a couple of days. It's not worth it."

I'm a mortician's daughter. The keepsake they stole-emotion surges through me. If I had any vestige of hope that I could one day see eye to eye with them, it's officially dead gone. My hands tremble with the need to strangle them both. "You don't get it, do you? You just killed him and left him there like trash. Do you have even an ounce of respect for the dead?"

Phinks wrings the tail of his towel. "That's not what we—" he says, but he stops short when Feitan sends him a look.

A pregnant silence fills the lounge as they acknowledge one another, to confirm something.

"She doesn't know," says Feitan with knitted brows.

"Doesn't know  _what?"_  I say.

Another pause, imbued with calculation. Phinks takes a long drag of his cigarette and takes his time blowing the smoke.

"We told the others while you were in your room what we saw that day," says Phinks. "We didn't murder Fazier."

I freeze, reading their posture, faces, waiting for the punchline. None came. "But you said he was dead?"

"Stop the presumptions. Yeah, we said he was dead," says Feitan. "But it wasn't by our hand."

"He had been freshly chopped before we got there. We didn't stick around to find out who did it either," says Phinks.

That would be a curveball for me if I believed it. "Nice try. I don't need you to tell me because I can find him myself." And do they really expect me to trust their word after they stole my keepsake?

Smoke coils and obscures Phinks' stricken features, Feitan, however, slackens in his chair, his hands hidden in his pockets.

"In his apartment," says Feitan, miffed.

"You think that wise?" Phinks asks Feitan.

"She'll go. Stubborn but she's well within her right to confirm her comrade's death. We can't force her not to go."

Oh it's too rich for words. The man who threatened me with torture to force a confession out of me is not a fan of force.

Phinks doesn't respond but I witness a new complexity creep into his scowl and I wonder if he had the same thought.

"Go on." Feitan turns to me. "But you best be prepared." Then he says another word. At first I thought Gortese, but it's not. It's not Japanese either, also confirmed by Phinks' soft  _heh?_ beside him. He said the Chinese word for  _dangerous_ and despite the centuries and ocean that separates us, some words are still virtually identical in our language family.

His eyes, the only visible part of his face, wrinkle with warning and  _sincerity_.

The foreboding tension gnaws at my gusto as I stand in stunned silence.

What if they are telling the truth and they hadn't murdered Fazier? That his killer was still meandering out there, rubbing hands and that I should at least be alert to the possible circumstance? I banish the thought.

"Bull. Shit," I rasp. "This is another ploy to rile me up again." I swivel around to leave.

"Take Machi with you, even if you don't believe us," growls Phinks. "You're dumber than you look if you go alone."

Cold reluctance balls in my chest. My instincts agree with Phinks, however begrudgingly. The sinister implications aside, it is much safer to be with another in Meteor City. Asking Machi for support isn't an insane idea, excellent one actually.

Yet after what we just discussed it might be bothersome to ask Machi to accompany me.

My nerve to face her is still low after our talk and she won't rush to see my 'indecisive' face for at least a little while.

No, I can handle it myself. I spent so much of my time alone in Meteor City and I wasn't about to start relying on these people. I'm not even part of the Troupe.

My instincts compound against me. Take five minutes. Clear your head. Cool down.  _Wallahae,_ go meditate. You're not thinking clearly. My knotted thoughts are tangled on my tongue.

If you can't ask Machi, ask them— Again, I banish the thought, exile it to Syberia. There's no one I can ask and I don't need them.

I round my defiant gaze on both of them before ending the discussion with a firm period, "You're both just trying to scare me."

They don't edge the silence with wit or snide as I leave them behind, cigarette burning to the filter, in the lounge.

* * *

The unholy decay hits me in the corridor of Fazier's apartment building. Not a peep of life in the hall or up the stairwell as if death haunts the entire building. I pry open the door and unleash the pungent smell and I reflexively gag. Good thing I skipped lunch.

I face the open hall that leads to his bedroom but there's a dark cloud buzzing in the living room. Beside an overturned dining chair, hoarded by flies, lies Fazier. With the tiniest glimpse at the clothes, I ID it as his body. Livor mortis marbled his skin and limbs, past primary flaccidity, were flexed stiff with rigor mortis. Maggots have made a home in four concentrated points on his torso and abdomen.

Gut a pig and let it sit for three days in the heat, dab it with cheap perfume and you'll have half of what Fazier's rotting corpse smells like.

If I had a gun to my head and if forced to choose, Meteor City's smoking junk dunes would easily win preference over a single putrid corpse.

My mother had a stomach of steel. How did I as a child handle the mortuary?

I'm even more disgusted with Feitan and Phinks—how dare they leave a body without disposing of it? Respect the dead and their bodies.

Wallahae, I kneel down, covering my mouth but it does little to mask the smell as I gently roll down his lids over his lifeless eyes.

Poor bastard.

Did this man have family? He had a crew. None of whom I bothered to associate with and even in a time like this I don't know how to contact them. He told me he had been exiled to Meteor City so I imagine he lost all connections but rebuilt himself here.

What would become of his business? His connections, the landmines he sold. Where had they gone?

_Clink-clink._

I move my shoe. Bullet blanks litter the carpet.

Guns?

The wall. Four holes and the black splatter of blood on the wall and carpet. I lean closer. The buzzing and live larva turn my stomach like a blender, but I confirm something: the four points the maggots feasted on, were in fact trauma punctures. How did I miss it before?

Fazier died by gunfire, but how? Feitan and Phinks killed him right? They don't rub me as the type to rely on guns. I don't see any charred flesh or mangled limbs like I would expect from those two.

So what the hell happened? Paku didn't go with them and judging by the caliber of this bullet blank, it's too small for her pistol—

A shadow lurches. A gun cocked in Fazier's hall. My brain only has enough time to register  _Mistake!_  before the blunt trauma at my cranium Darkness chases my conscious mind away and mercifully, racing thoughts halt and I black out before hitting the bloodstained floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tsk, tsk, Safra. You should have listened to your fellow troupe members D: Welp she is definitely in a pickle to frame it lightly, but it's not the only issue on her plate. I swear one of these days I'll cut her some slack... but there's a price to pay for stubbornness and her unwillingness to reach out to her comrades. Not that I fault her for not trusting Feitan and Phinks...


	13. Playing with Dolls

I don't awaken for ages. The first conscious sensation is that my shoulders and hips ache from being hauled a great distance and from laying too long on a stiff surface.

Footsteps trod over. A glass-smooth hand, too smooth to be human, sweeps my tangled mess of hair off my face. Then out of nowhere, my right eyelid is pried open, like someone wanting to pluck out my eyeball.

Phantom lights dazzle my burning eye and a man with stringy blond hair speaks, "Lucky you, she's no longer concussed." The world snaps into focus when he releases my lids.

"Good because I wasn't about to take the wrap for killing her," gruffs another man, who from his articulated oval shape, I liken to a tortoise bursting in a suit. He scratches an inflamed patch on the back of his wrist, but his silky white gloves glide instead of scratch, so instead, he scrapes the itch against the gritty wall.

His peaceful sigh bounces against the low ceiling and ridged walls of solid rock. I'm not a geologist, but I recognize the white bespeckled rock as limestone. I lick my chapped lips and taste ashy silt that thickens the air. How did I get stuck in a cavern?

I'm not extremely claustrophobic or anything...but my discomfort rating skyrockets from fussy to the sensation of ants marching and pinching under my skin.  _There are noooo windows,_ whispers the grim corner of my brain.  _No natural light means far inside. There's no way oooout._

Feitan and Phinks were right I was wrong I should have taken Machi with me but  _noooooo_  I wasn't thinking straight and once again I'm waking up in a strange place but even if I survive this ordeal whatever the hell this turns out to be I'm not giving them credit for being right.

"You can tell boss she's awake now," says the stringy blond. Tortoise leaves through a door I hadn't noticed. Wallahae, there's a door, which means there's a way out—

Stringy huffs. "Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I did not expect to find  _you_ here of all places," he says, flicking his tongue along the corner of his lip. Though I almost dismiss his comment as kidnapper banter, he says it with a little too much recognition for my liking.

My eyes squint against the unnatural light buzzing above me as I try to jog my memory. Even when he flips his long hair away from his face, I can't trace even one feature from memory. I can say with 100% certainty, I have never seen this man before.

I try to sit up but of course (sarcasm) my wrists and ankles are belted to a table. Pulling with all my might got me a measly millimeter of mobility.

He shows an all-knowing smile. "Just relax, it will all be over soon," says Stringy, his flippant tone betraying the  _obvious_  foreboding his words allude to, right as the door opens wide.

I had been expecting some real genre mobsters and when the man walks in followed by Tortoise I understand at first sight he's the real deal.

Sand and soot crumps as they trod closer. I crane my neck back as far as I can muster, but soon all three figures loom over me.

The unnatural light does nothing to soften their gnarled features, skin sagging, noses hooked, eyes sunken, lips pursed, flaring nostrils. They even smelled the part; I catch fired gunpowder on their tailored suits.

The man in the center, with a guard at each arm, is the head-honcho; the most protected man in the room is usually the most important. I'm not great with names, faces, or the notorious or the famous. But when I spot a silver gleam at his ear, even  _I_ know who he is: Fisherman, but just any but  _the_ Fisherman.

The one guy Fazier ever cared to warn me about. None of the other bosses, not even the Phantom Troupe, just this one man.

Fisherman drags a chair, scraping legs against the sandy floor and parks it so close, I smell spearmint on his breath.

Too close. I peer down at my hand, measuring the precise distance between me and his tailored cuff, just one well-aimed grab and then with nen I could— _shit_.

The nen-restrictive gloves Machi made me. They cut my nen circulation at the wrist, as intended but horribly inconveniently when I can't peel them off. Inconspicuously slipping them off is impossible with Mr Spearminty breath lounging right there.

Up close I see in better detail his fish hook earring. The shank coiled through the ridge of his ear and the barb presses precariously out his earlobe. My gory brain chimes in again and whispers just imagine someone RIPPING that out—

He glances head to toe of me in my uwagi, bright orange obi, and shoes stained from Fazier's blood. Per his namesake, I feel like a fish, about to be gutted, sliced and served like sashimi. And all this man has to do is tap his finger at the display case and say 'that one.'

He crosses his legs and light gleams on his patent black loafers and pressed slacks without a speck of sand. There is such a thing as 'too clean' in Meteor City. Unlike Fazier who whined loudly from punishing heat (ruined shirts from sweat patches in his pits), Fisherman looks cool and clean in his element.

"You are younger than I expected," says Fisherman in a chesty voice. "When I heard Fazier housed a foreign recruit unburying the land mines in the dunes, I pictured bigger, older,  _male_ , not you." He tuts. "Where are my manners? First things first: Introductions."

He bends his neck, and leans at the waist, allowing his peppery hair to slip out of place. It takes me an absurd amount of time to realize that  _he is bowing_. A very non-Meteor City thing to do. It's a custom in many countries, but most unnerving of all is it's also a Gortese custom.

Paranoid as it may be to be unnerved by a bow, it's enough for me to shoo away thoughts of escape and forget all else for the time being.

He pauses, waiting several grating seconds for me to either bow or otherwise acknowledge his greeting. I leave his bow unmatched—even if I wanted to I couldn't move with the damn restraints.

"I go by Fisherman, no  _-san_ , no  _mister-_ , no prefixes or suffixes."

I ignore the blatant invitation for me to utter my name.

More silent seconds slog by.

"You don't have to play that. I know you're not mute," says Fisherman with a mirthless laugh. "I would like to know what by name you wish to be called. Wasn't it Nanashi?  _Or_  do you want to be addressed by your real name?"

I'll admit that line nearly cracked my stoic front...but then I remember what he's suggesting is impossible.  _Wallaehaegeuyeyo_ , damn it. Only the Troupe has ever heard my real name in Meteor City and regardless that I'm still on uneasy turf with 99% of them, none of them strike me as the type to go blabbing to Fisherman or random foot soldiers. Then again, with a name like  _the nameless one_  it wouldn't take a genius to guess that wouldn't be my true name. I'll take him to his bluff and hold my silence.

"No...? So you're letting me do the honors of introducing you." He rolls his ankle with growing anticipation. "I am a cultured man and I know Gortese has many social ranks integrated into the language. So which would you prefer? Safra-nim or Jung-sshi?"

His words numb me to the core in an instant. I hold the muscles in my face from shifting but I can't reverse the color draining from my skin, displaying my shock.

He pauses again, this time to let the dust settle and for me to buckle down and accept that he is controlling this exchange.

"Let's cut to the chase. We all know why we are here."

My parched throat aches when I speak. "You killed Fazier."

He half nods half tilts his head without any hint of regret. "His passing was unfortunate. He was a transplant to this city and brayed that he could never quite understand it and how it works. Again, unfortunate but his sudden absence has created a power vacuum in Meteor City's underground. Finding you first was critical because according to what I heard, Safra-nim, you have a  _special_  way of unburying the landmines."

I dig into my palms, trying to pinch and wheedle out my gloves. Machi, the wonderful talented Machi, made them too perfect and they sit snug on me, sleeker than real skin that I can't grasp the fabric to peel off.

If he knows my name, my nationality, it's possible he knows my ability—

A fourth life energy wafts among us...Nen.

I blink rapidly. I sense nen in this cavern. Like the fragile candle wick flame, blown too fast in the wind. Faint, but I'd bet my bones the source is here. I pan between the three, positive it's coming from one of them. Is Fisherman a nen user or maybe one of these two—

Stringy shifts his soft leather shoes, soles grating sand, getting Fisherman's attention, at first reluctant to speak, but the boss waves his hand to say 'out with it'.

"She has been spotted by the Phantom Troupe," he says, averting his gaze out of respect.

For all of Fazier's desperate sqwacking at Phinks and Feitan, I sense no distress from the pristine mobster.

"Yes, I've been told the Spider has returned to Meteor City," he says, not answering the implied question from Stringy: they found me first.

"How do they factor in?" I ask without any strategy, but plain curiosity.

I'm sure I've asked out of turn, without a question being forwarded to me first, judging by Tortoise's firm kick at the table leg near my head. However, Fisherman cups his chin, articulating a good answer.

"The Phantom Troupe are not the same species as the Mafia. How does the Troupe factor into all of that? They don't."

I gathered from Chrollo too during our long exchange that the Spider is definitely not a bastard branch of the Mafia. Clovers or clubs after being apprehended by both the Troupe and the Mafia, I'm pressed to find a difference yet.

...a second flicker of Nen in the background. Am I crazy? Like the dubious sounds in pitched darkness, you can't decide are real or tricks of your mind.

 _Mien_  would give me a greater hint of who, but I do not dare give indication I'm a nen user when there is a morsel of a chance that Fisherman does not know my ability yet. Wallahae, I forgot to factor the odds there may be more than one other nen user...

I need to keep them talking.

"I thought you said you were cutting to the chase," I quip and receive another kick to the table, rocking my aching head.

A hocked loogie to the floor and a curse in a language from Tortoise that I don't recognize, but I can gather from context I'm a filthy wench.

Fisherman holds up a paddle hand and Tortoise actually shrinks in obedience. "There, there, she's just teasing."

Besides finding out who is the other nen user I need to know how in the nine hells did he know my real name? "How do you know my real name?"

"We will get to that shortly. You answer my question first: what has Fazier told you about the land mines?"

Not much. "That he didn't know how they were scattered in Meteor City."

Fisherman gives another mirthless laugh, followed by a hacking cough. He's a smoker, I just know it.

"Oh that weasel. If the truth were grass he could weave around it better than a snake. Maybe he didn't know how they were scattered but he certainly knew why. The original buyer of those mines was Fazier himself. Didn't know when to shut up, had a falling out with the supplier. Instead of hunting Fazier for the money, they encircled the entire city in a ring of fire, making all exports and imports come to a grinding halt.

"Do you know what can grow in the middle of the desert? Not much. Not enough to feed ten million people. The city heavily relies on supplies from outside the desert and suddenly there was no product or money coming in or out."

I don't have anything to respond to that. Instead I ask, "Where did the landmines go?"

"Where do all weapons go? Conflict zones, to rebel groups trying to hold territory, to corrupt governments trying to keep their people in line."

The revelation about Fazier should have me reeling. Yet, as if my entire body is covered in protective film, Fisherman's words do not reach me. Bound here with a nen user(s) of unknown skill and power in my midst I do not have the time or mental capacity to regret.

"You can see the situation is dire. You have seen the bodies piling up near Council Headquarters. Something must be done." He drums a finger on the table like he' putting out a cigarette. "Don't you agree?"

I recall the chiming laughter from children playing in the dunes and think of Huan. I nod wordlessly. I know how that involves me, but not my capturer. "Are you threatening me to keep unburying the landmines?"

"I want you to work for me," says Fisherman. "After you finish the job, I pay you not just in money. I can get you out of Meteor City. I can place you wherever you want to be, hand you a real passport of whatever country you want to call home. Like the laundered money and weapons, whatever baggage you brought here would be washed clean."

"What if she brokered a deal with the Phantom Troupe already?" asks Stringy and I withhold a wince. I don't need questions like his complicating things more.

"Even if she did, I do not worry about the Troupe."

Again, I am NOT an official member of the Troupe, only Troupe-adjacent, and even I want to shake my head at his arrogance.

"I can counter the Devil's deal with a deal of my own. She is not a slave of the Phantom Troupe. She can decide for herself."

I am flabbergasted at how much that carelessly added line bothers me. I am NO ONE'S slave. While I was dragged in by the PT, I don't dawdle around because I like the cathedral's high ceilings. But I get it. It's a ruse to rile me up. It's all part of the coy negotiating. If I can say, I agree I belong to no one, then my resistance towards him ebbs away.

"Decide what for myself?"

"Decide what you want to be: protected by the Mafia or a pawn for the Phantom Troupe. I want these landmines out of Meteor City and I'm prepared to pay. However isolated it seems, this city survives by its connections to the outside world. We have no economy, no growth, no culture. Meteor City is being suffocated."

I can see his native Meteor City-ness in plain view as a genuine care for the city and its inhabitants. The same way Chrollo approached me.  _Do you know anything about Meteor City?_ He asked me once.

I still think it's a putrid junkyard that shouldn't exist in barren terrain where  _nothing_ should exist. I haven't traveled much, but being in Meteor City...I don't know what it is, something in the sandy air, history, or tense vibes from its people, but living in Meteor City is an existence of elevated anxiety.

Why do people stay here I thought upon arriving in MC but then I thought of East Gorteau. Why don't more people try to escape? Why have escapees in the past bribed their way back into the country? Despite what many Northern scholars think, EG does not rule its citizens solely by oppression or brute force. Being Gortese isn't just an ethnic background, language or even historical legacy, it's an ideology. We are exceptional in our ability to endure.

 _"We are a dot in the desert. A dumping ground for anything and anyone. Ten million of different origins, some born here, some dumped here and some arriving to find meaning. The only rule of law, the only mantra: we reject no one, so don't take anything from us. You are free here. We do not reject you and will not take anything from you."_  Chrollo told me. I thought I understood then but now the frosted glass pane is smoothed crystal clear. Meteor City, too, is an ideology.

As I lie tied to a table, getting a first class trip out of Meteor City is mouth-wateringly tempting. I would still be paid and have the added bonus of not only disappearing but being reborn in the system. I wouldn't be a refugee, but an ordinary citizen. Passport, identification, legitimacy and stable income. I could get my brother and sister set up after smuggling them out of EG. It's Chrollo's offering, but better, a permanent option, and I wouldn't have to master nen anymore. It's what Chrollo offered but with cream and a shiny passport to the new world on top.

Yet, I can't help but recall the unforgettable bang from Pakunoda's bullet that unleashed a river dam of memories, clashes, and promises. Chrollo didn't just promise me money, but that he personally would see to it that my siblings are saved. Even if Fisherman's money could buy my family a token to smuggle themselves out, that difference in promise fathomed value more than money.

I flex my gloved hands, a labor of kindness from Machi. I understand why she became annoyed now. She used her life energy to fix me an uwagi and special gloves and to her question of what I will do with my nen, I gave her a half-ass answer. She was right. I didn't care. I had been prodded by external forces, but motivation comes from within. Curiosity is a start, but not enough.

If Fisherman offered five days ago, I would have pounced on the offer of not being forced to use my nen and forget its existence after the landmines. Now I want to know how I can save myself, my family, with my nen.

It is an attractive offer and Fisherman knows it, which explains the look of offense coloring his face when I decline.

"Excuse me?"

"I said I decline your offer."

"If you decline, how will you learn how Fazier and I found your true name?"

For all my resolution in declining the offer, I'll admit I dug in my heels to a steaming halt right then.

"Go on," I say.

"Fazier, for all of his theatrics, was not a stupid man. After his deal went south, why in the world would he accept some foreigner who appeared out of nowhere with the ability to unbury landmines? In the same way you go knee-deep in the sand for those landmines, he dug deep for the dirt on you."

"Who and how?"

"The secret of that I cannot tell you for free."

He had made a mistake in letting me realize that I am too valuable. My name is his last card and he's not about to fork it over.

Five days ago I could picture me signing the figurative dotted line. Fazier, Fisherman, anyone would have been fine.

"Your past will come back to bite no matter how much you ignore it," he says. "I could give you protection for now and into the future. All you have to do is say yes."

His fingers fumble with his fishhook earring, fingertip gracing the shiny hook tip.

East Gorteau would never buy landmines when they make all and more than they need domestically. We were fed the propaganda that they were saving the weapons for war with Mitene Union and the United States of Saherta, but it's obvious there's plenty of cash to be made from selling landmines. For an economy that shut down in the 90s, cashflow propped up the hermit kingdom.

So if Fisherman isn't lying, Fazier could have had shady contacts with Gorteau. There may be someone out there who knows I'm here and Fisherman is offering protection among all else. I am buying protection. Buying it.

I think of the words recited by Machi, Phinks, and Feitan, almost robotic I thought at first,  _"We are thieves. We steal. When we want something, we take it."_

Seething after Feitan and Phinks stole my keepsake I didn't get it. Restrained beneath some mobsters who are offering me the chance  _to purchase my protection_ that mantra finally marinated into forehead-smackingly obvious. I cannot purchase my protection, freedom, or life. If I want it, I must take it.

It means letting the mystery of how Fazier and Fisherman uncovered my name remain a mystery. Inevitably I'll have to face Phinks and Feitan (eat humble pie), admit they were right and apologize for calling them liars. It means confronting the possibilities of my nen. It's  _my_ nen yet I've estranged myself from my own life energy. I won't do that anymore. Never again.

It was my own dithering that soured things with Machi and my own insecurity that prevented me from asking for Feitan and Phinks for help.

My past will rear its ugly head. Like a rubber band, the farther and harder I yank away, the harder I will snap back. But at least now, and now it is forehead-smackingly obvious, I won't be alone.

OK I'm alone at the moment, but the point is legit even if there are no members with me.

Stringy shifts between his feet.

I decline Fisherman a second and final time.

* * *

When I settled on those feel-good resolutions, my plan for escape hadn't been more elaborate than 'stroll out the door on my two feet'. For someone who considers herself pretty strategic, that is a grotesque oversight.

At my decline Fisherman announces they are departing and that I will be given time to think. Fisherman tells Stringy to adjust the air before he leaves.

The threat of being enclosed in a space underground prickles my scalp and the sensation to scratch creeps down my arms and to my toes.

"Dare I say it but Danchou would be  _touched_ by the loyalty you displayed," says Stringy with a distinct change in his voice. As if his words came from another's chords.

Did I mishear? I face him, wondering why the silky voice sounds eerily familiar. "Come again?"

Against the light, he opens his palm. I feel nen, the buggy nen. From his middle knuckle to his wrist bone a shadow, as if coming from deep within him, glows through the veil of his skin: the number 4 in the crest of a twelve-legged spider.

I gawk at the spider in his palm. Am I hallucinating?!

"You're with the Troupe?" I whisper, half asking, half just getting my thoughts in order. His wrinkle-lined mouth widens into a smug smile. "What's going on here? I thought I met all members already."

"We have met. You may not recognize me but  _looks can be deceiving,"_ he says, clicking his tongue at his bottom lip.

I almost wish Fisherman and Tortoise would come back because this is getting creepy. "You're going to have to give me more than #4. I don't know the Troupe numbers yet."

"Very well," he says.

I understand now why it took me so long to pinpoint the source. The nen that smolders the stocky man reads as borrowed nen, draped over him like a coat belonging to another. Like dough, the nen takes shape. The stringy blond hair flows thicky and ashen in hue. The tailored suit billows now with drapey panels. A silver glimmer at his eyebrow and corner lip-

" _Omokage?_ "

He flicks his long fringe away from his brows, sea glass eyes aglow. "Bingo."

I gape at the person who without the illusion, in his stocky shape does not in under any possible light resemble the willowy, lustrous haired Troupe member. I only saw Omokage once and though he had been quieter than other members, he had been no less memorable or less distinct in flair. The puppet does not compare. He lacks the priest garb, six inches of height, piercings, and five feet of hair but the signature of his nen reads undeniably him: a perfume with notes of antiquated poise and glints of mischief.

"You...you don't look like Omokage."

The phantom runs his tongue along his lip for a piercing that isn't really there. "I am not literally Omokage. You are interacting with a manifestation of my nen."

"How did you know I was here?"

"You could say, I have  _eyes everywhere_." His eyes glow hot like coins on the molten pavement, reflecting the white glare of the sun.

I blink to soothe the two dots burned on my sight.

"Will you tell me how?"

His eyes dim to their more pleasing blue. "Hmm, I want you to guess."

I hear what sounds like footsteps encroach. "Do we have time for this?!"

"Give me this," he says. "Humor a craftsman, the illusion is everything."

I bust out my nen-knowledge chops. "Are you a Manipulator? You're controlling someone from afar."

"Good guess, but remember this is a manifestation of my nen. Some more hints: I am a model of a human, and yet I am not made of flesh and bone. I am made of porcelain, glass, and rag. Here I am, no strings attached but I am a vassal of the master's whim."

Strings, rags, porcelain, vassal but no strings—what could bind these elements together? "Dolls?"

He beams, his nen flaring, eating up the answer with excitement. "Bingo."

"So...this guy is just a nen-doll?"

He taps the boney ridge near his temple and the blue orbs with pupils that swelled and shrank during the whole conversation with Fisherman suddenly  _dink!_ like glass.

I withhold a shriek but my body jolts, almost taking the whole table with me, in disgust, but  _not_ -Omokage doesn't budge.

"Did these fool you? They were so hard to make."

Out of the many people I have rubbed shoulders against in Meteor City, how many of them were Omokage's dolls?  _I_ _have eyes everywhere_ sounds a million times more creepy now...

I beat the belt buckle on the table. He's doing a lot of talking, and not a lot of helping... "Is it too much to ask that you help me?"

"Alas, I am not in Meteor City."

News to me. "Where the heck are you if not in Meteor City?"

"You should be more inquisitive about where  _you_ are. Where there are no windows or natural light."

The rocky walls glitter. "In a cave right? I know that."

"Erm, not quite. It's more complicated than that."

My head throbs again, but less from the hit to my head... "Go on, Omokage."

"Did you know the cathedral was once the tallest structure in Meteor City?"

I'm not sure the relevance but I go with it.

"It has dipped over time. The whole city has shifted from a bunch of microearthquakes and sinkholes."

Earthquakes...sinkholes...where the sun don't shine...

Bile coats my throat.  _Holy_  shit. "We're underground, under Meteor City?!"

"Bingo. You're good at this."

I bristle but miraculously hold it together. "How far...?"

"This structure is what if ants built an underground maze, but this chamber is straight down reachable only by shaft. You are closer to Hell than you are to the surface."

"So there's only one way out? Straight up?"

"Bingo."

Stop saying bingo. I know not to kill the messenger but Omokage is lucky I can't reach him with these restraints.

"Why did you come here?"

He throws me a dramatic expression of mock-offense. "Don't accuse me of anything. I gather information as part of my work with the Troupe. I wasn't expecting you here, as I already said, but I stuck around to confirm that you'll make it out of here alive. Danchou has a caper in mind that involves you and if you die before then I can never find out right?"

"A caper? Has he told you details?"

"I am with him now but no matter how I nudge, his lips won't loosen. No clues yet, but I hope you're as curious as I am."

"Wait, Danchou isn't in Meteor City? Are you both on a  _mission?_ "

"I wouldn't call it that. More like a brief excursion. Hmmm, shopping trip is more like it."

"Shopping for anything in particular?"

"Ideas," he says. "Danchou is also a craftsman, constructing his plans with the tender care I spend on dolls. You piqued his interest so after you said you'd stay we left that night. I understand him. When I feel a rush of inspiration, I can't wait to dive in."

I feel color return to my face. "So you're curious about Danchou's plan?"

"Not only. I am also sympathetic to your cause."

"Why is that?"

"That I will save for another occasion."

I want to pry but when Tortoise shouts outside for not-Omokage to hurry up, I realize my time is up.

"The shaft is over there but I'm going to ride it up leaving you down here alone," he says. "That's what happens when you dig straight down. Never dig straight down." He begins to head towards the door.

"Wait! Aren't you going to help?!"

"You don't need my help. I would consider it if I were in Meteor City, but I'm not."

I size up the very sentient  _doll_. "You could outsource that task to this doll of yours."

"I could, but the doll is too valuable to compromise now. Throwing him away to help you would be a waste since you don't even need help."

Why not let me be the judge of that? "You could at least undo these ties." I flex my arms furiously, irritating my sleeveless arms in the process.

"You know what I'm going to say." He then mouths the words: You. Don't. Need. My. Help.

He sweeps his oily hair over his shoulder with more sassy pleasure than the situation warrants. Even if he didn't mean for it to be sassy, I  _read_ it as too sassy.

A comrade is asking him for help. Undoing one tie would take two seconds. The Phantom Troupe-what is wrong with these people?

"Well I will give you one bit of help," he says. "There is a flashlight under the table you will soon need."

I stare up at the fluorescent lights. Were they blinking  _more_ than before or I am overthinking it? "Is the power going to go out?"

"The power will stay on for as long as you don't flip that switch. You'll still need the flashlight."

"This isn't some kind of sick test for the newbie is it?"

"You were merely caught in an unfortunate circumstance. The troupe has no way of knowing where you are, besides  _me_ of course. Final word of advice," he says and points a bony finger at the air vent. "Watch out for methane."

I only have enough time to shoot him a furrowed look before he slams the door. What follows is a string of voices and then the rhythmic _crink_  of the chains hauling up the cage to the surface. I count the seconds as it can give me some indication of just how far below the surface I am. As the sound clangs on and on for several seconds and grows softer with distance as do my hopes for escape. At  _least_ a few hundred feet straight down below the surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for taking so long with this chapter. Bereavement disrupted everything and writing through that was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I hope there isn't much of a disconnect between this installment and the previous chapters. Thank you for your patience readers. I can only hope the work was worth it. 
> 
> Well look at who showed up? Who would have guessed Omokage was so busy in the underbelly of Meteor City. He's not exactly the knight-in-shining-armor rescuer. Though he was only part of Phantom Rouge, I liked the obsessed craftsman angle they took with his character. I couldn't find any fics with him, his brief appearance made such an impression on me, so I just had to add him to this story.
> 
> I came to a fork in the road with this part with Fazier and Fisherman. I thought of interweaving this plot point with Chrollo's caper later on but decided that would overshadow the caper. I'm ready to get to Chrollo's caper. I'm sure you all are too ^_^;


	14. Force of Personality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Away from Meteor, Chrollo does some personal shopping, meanwhile under Meteor City, Safra faces her internal demons.

After finalizing the food shipment to Meteor City, Danchou announced he needed to do some 'personal shopping' (Uvogin saw the silvery quirk in Omokage's brows).

In the marketplace, one day's journey away from Meteor City, anything could be bought: exotic animals, psychedelics, and dangerous knowledge. Food could be shipped from closer markets so Uvo knows Danchou's purpose is to find something out of the ordinary.

So who could blame Uvogin when Danchou leads them to a hole-in the-wall, best described as a jungle of bookshelves, and returns with a browned paperback, a checkered case, and a slim book.

Sometime later, once they venture away from the lively market transitioning from vending to afterhours debauchery, Uvo asks what he, and Omokage, have been dying to ask.

"What are those, Danchou?"

He presents his new treasures as if they're the apple of his eye. Omokage sees the paperback cover.

"Gortese?" asks Omokage of the gibberish letters and Uvogin hutches over to take a closer look.

Still gibberish, but he takes in the detail of the spindly letters on the cover.

"Are those gifts for the newbie?" Uvogin pictures the slight girl with, surprisingly, the will of iron. He had chomped by her ear, and besides some hair rising on her neck, she had remained composed.

"Something to help make her feel at home?" asks Omokage, with a curled lip and a click of his lip piercing.

"Something I need her help with," says Danchou.

The two men wait for a follow-up answer, all for naught.

"Give me one," asks Uvogin.

Omokage had already reached for the top paperback, but Uvo wants the slimmer book with the blue cover and golden lettering. The wide regal blue fabric cover is the span of his hands and when he cracks it open, his enhanced eyes drink in the visuals.

Monsters, beasts, creatures of the unknown, all painted adeptly by hand. Paintings so elaborate, like still life, no, even better. Like life had been magically captured by the pages. On a second look, Uvo noticed the drawings were in fact constructed with tiny winding lines of expressive Gortese calligraphy with tiny brushstrokes not even the length of a grain of rice. All still gibberish, but mesmerizing to follow with his eyes.

Hardly the careful type, even Uvo didn't risk harming the paintings with his sausage fingers, allowing the gentle wind to turn the delicate pages. He'd need tweezers to grasp the paper, as thin as tissue, without tearing.

"And the box?" asks Omokage.

Danchou opens two clasps and lifts the lid. Inside are rows of the black and white pieces. If Uvo could describe the game, it would be a distant cousin of chess, a checkered board, with backgammon stones inscribed with mahjong symbols.

"Is this that game from Japon, called Go?" asks Omokage.

"Not Go, but Safra will know exactly what it is and how to play it," says Danchou and locks the case, with a delighted air of mystery. "How is Safra?"

"Captured," says Omokage with a beleagured sigh.

This is news to Uvogin who forgets about the book for a second to sneer ear to ear, wondering how someone could get themselves captured in-what?-five seconds?

"Shalnark says they haven't found her yet," says Omokage, taking from his pocket a cellphone. "I suppose they're still narrowing down their leads."

"What do you think, Omokage?" asks Danchou, evoking a rare playful spin in his tone. "Was it a waste to pick these up?"

"She'll be just fine."

* * *

_Back in Meteor City_

I am not fine. I swore I would take my escape, but how? Once again my moods are fast and how quick my resolution can serrate into desolation.

The fluorescent light above me burns white, eye-ball melting white. I twist away as much as I can and glower at the door Omokage had slipped out without a hit to his conscience.

 _You don_ _'t need my help._

Embittered, I know and he knows he could have undone _one_ tie and Fisherman would have been none the wiser.

I am to lie here until Fisherman and his goons return. Once I give into their terms, they'll take me to the surface. That's what he implied by 'think about it,' but I will not let my ability become a banquet for the Mafia. I'd rather die.

My heart beats like a war drum. I one-handedly try to pinch the glove and contort my fingers, but between the clunky belt and buckle, I can't pinch the fabric. Again, Machi, you made them too well. They cling to my skin as if I were born with gloves. I then wrestle with the thick belts, but the leather cuts into my wrists and shins. Omokage, would it have killed you to undo one of these belts?!

I soon tire and slump with the atrophy of the dead against the table. I close my eyes, unable to bear the light or myself anymore.

The Phantom Troupe. My siblings. Faces of people I have failed. Instead of gathering strength, using _Mien_ to soothe the terrors, I surrender and let the demons wreck wild in my head.

I can't do this I can't—I can't endure more of the same. It will never be better. I'm so tired. My siblings need someone better. A better sister. Someone not useless. They'd be better off without me. I had always been a burden to them, especially Amari. It would be easier on them if I were dead. I can't do it. I'm 21 years old and I'm done with life.

_Snap!_

In the cave, a sound breaks like a rubber band pulled, pulled, and pulled until it snapped. It's loud enough to force a respite in my racing thoughts.

I open my eyes, wondering if I had imagined the sound when the shadows shift.

The shadows encroach, combining, growing larger until a bleak mass swallows the white light in one gulp.

Reality only needs a second to sink in that the only source of light hundreds of feet underground has died. Any last morsel of hope within me dies with it—

I'm stopped when a warm, liquid sensation hugs me. I distrust it at first, but that ebbs away as my body feels insubstantial as do my mental woes. There's no hot tub, but liquid darkness brings me back to being blissfully submerged in the hot tub at the PT cathedral. My war-drum heart slows and my body tingles from sheer relaxation. Whatever this is, I could soak in it forever…

 _This darkness isn't from an absence of light, but instead is a pure nothingness, a curtain of protection to cast out the world for a moment, here is free,_ says a lucid voice in my ear, instincts or wishful thinking, I don't care which.

Here...is...free? What is _here?_ No matter how hard I squint, I cannot spot a seam marking a start or an end.

It takes me moving for a better view to realize I _can_ move. I'm not restrained and I'm standing upright. I'm in my uwagi, gloves and my shoes are missing Fazier's blood. In absolute darkness, I'd be night-blind, and would not be able to see my clothes and body. So this abyss is a figment of my imagination. My head, after drowning in negative buoyancy, feels…afloat. I've heard of this kind of lightheadedness before, after someone spends ages lying back, sending too much blood to their head. Have I merely passed out? I've passed out before but this is lucid—

In the abyss, like an approaching phantom, a room yawns open. I move towards the room's gaping entrance and it towards me.

As soon as I cross the threshold, recognition floods me.

_This room. It's my mother's room._

Hinges screech as I swing the door wide. Daylight glows behind shut curtains and I know from the Monday blue reflecting on the walls that it's mid-afternoon.

I eye the bundle on the bed.

_I've walked in because it's my turn to urge mother to get out of bed. She's in one of her…reclusive moods, but she can't wallow here forever._

Sometimes mother cavorts with boundless energy. Wired all day and sleepless all night, and other times, she staggers, on the pinnacle of exhaustion. On her worst days, she'd lay so still she'd resemble the corpses in the mortuary.

"Ma," I whisper, my heart beating so hard it could burst. "Ma, it's me." Please answer.

The heap, cocooned with blankets, wiggles like a worm, struggles to sit up, but soon relents and slumps over again. A deep regretful breath as if she needed to breathe life itself back into her body.

"Sa _ffff._ " She's so weak that the _f_ falls on her tongue. "What time is it?"

Her voice is all the proof I need to know it's her. I rush around to her bedside, almost breaking into a run.

I sit beside her, and the mattress springs cringe under my weight. A blanket guards her nose and a tangled hairy mess shields her eyes.

I reach out to her but pause with a start, noticing my hands are naked. A change must have occurred when I crossed the threshold. My clothes…I'm not wearing my uwagi. I'm clad in the stiff blue pleated uniform I wore in secondary school, which I attended _loooong_ after she passed. The hair hitting my chin is my natural copper-brown, not the bottle-black I dyed it in WG. Am I a teenager now—what does this even mean?

_Your internal view._

But I am an adult. Why can't I see myself as an adult?

The abyss, the warm sensation of liquid soaking my skin, this room. What _is_ this? A dream or a memory? But neither word fits. I don't remember passing out or falling asleep, yet this vision has the blurry edges of a dream. But if it is a dream, it's pilfering from my memories, because I've been in this moment, coercing my bedridden mother away from her gloomy fortress, many times before.

Shove it. Who cares? I want to see her face; the face that could make mirrors smile.

I tuck the tresses behind her ear and I expect joy to avalanche over me.

Instead, something peculiar happens. I can perfectly count the rings in her brown eyes, but I can't decipher the blur obscuring her cheeks, chin and nose. I adjust my view like a camera lens, but each angle produces the same water-blotted picture. I cup her cheek, but I might as well touch soft clay; it's all physical gibberish. I am as close as I'm ever going to get to seeing her face again, and it's a perversion.

My rib cage chooses that moment to not expand right and I almost choke on a sob, but I stop myself.

Why can't I see her face?

The lucid voice from before whispers the answer I already know and don't want to hear. It's because _I_ don't remember her face anymore. I remember her eyes because she shares them with Huan, but the rest is gone.

And it's not just her, the books on her shelf, cornerstones of my childhood, those she read to me dozens of times, once solid in my memory are not indistinct blurs in the corner.

She groans. "What time is it? I can't remember where my necklace is, Saf."

This...is not extracted from a memory, but I sigh and tell her the truth. "I know where it is, Ma, and I'm going to get it back." The mental image of Phinks and Feitan keeping it forever churns my painfully empty stomach. "But we'll figure that out later." I pat the top of her bony hand. "First, you need to get up."

She moans as if I have ordered the impossible, and like a frightened animal, shrinks herself by rolling into a ball.

I sigh. She never makes it easy. "You need to eat. You need to drink. You need to get out of bed," I repeat tenderly. "I know it's hard, but you need to pull yourself together and get out of here."

"Saf, I can't do it. I'm so tired of everything," she whispers languidly, weighed by something more profound than physical exhaustion. "Next time, I always say, will be different and yet when I look ahead, I foresee more of the same. I'm young, but I've never feared death. Completely losing my mind, I fear more. I can't endure it anymore. I'm 41 and I'm done with life."

"Don't say that," I say. "There's still so much left to do. There's still Amari, and there's still Huan."

"I've failed them. They'd be better off without me. It would be easier for everyone if I was dead."

"That's not true," I say, calmly, but inside I'm frantic. "They need you."

"They need someone better. They deserve a better mother. Someone not useless. Why does it have to be me? Why would they put up with a burden like me?"

The bedsprings creak as I slide off the bed. Why am I seeing this?

Her eyes, still on mine, boring into my soul, plead for an answer. Part of her, ravaged by the demons in her head, has already written me off, but there's a dwindling part of her that despairs, searching for a sign, a small part of her that wants to live.

"Because they love you more than you love yourself," I say. "They would take you as a burden over you being dead. A million times over. You've relied on them and now they have to rely on you. They're still in East Gorteau and there's no one else. Because even with suffering, life still has so much beauty to behold.

"Even if I feel outmatched by the forces surrounding me and within, I still have value and I still want to live."

The vision blurs even more now but I press the heel of my palms against tears.

Why am I seeing this? What is _this_? I peer down at myself, my body (corporal or imaginary) is shrouded in a yellow glow as if sunlight shone from within.

I don't need the lucid voice to tell me that this vision isn't from sleep nor is it a memory spliced together. It's my Nen.

The vision vanishes like shadows in encroaching sunlight. My chest pangs when she disappears, her brown eyes the last I see of her. Unnatural light buzzes above me, white burns my eyes, the vent blows cool air and once again, I'm lying on my back. The darkness, the room, none of it was real.

Water runs into the ridges of my ears. My tears. Those had been real. Like the earlier _snap_ , I snap and sob, loud and ugly sobs, with snot threatening to drip down my lip.

Fine, Nen, you win, I get the picture. I needed a force of personality to change my inward and outward perspective. I promised I would stop estranging myself from my Nen, which meant confronting my deeper insecurities that began long before I ever heard of Nen and plague my relationships with others and myself.

Nen has never made me hallucinate before, but I'll admit, out of that depressed funk, even sobbing, I feel a million times better and _safer_. Not only that but now with the fogs of self-doubt cleared, I know _exactly_ how I'm getting out of here.

* * *

Here _is_ free and I'm free to experiment.

I fix my attention on the buckle on my right wrist. I had thought my ticket to escaping was taking off my glove, but I was wrong.

I ignite _Ten_ and feel my Nen. Really feel it like I did with Machi. As she said, my Nen body is a highway, a myriad of potential.

You have nodes everywhere and you can use any of them if you just try.

I don't need all of them, just those above my wrist, where the glove ends.

I overextend my arm, straining my joints as if I wanted to dislocate them, just enough for the finish hem of the belt to grace my sleeveless forearm. There are several misfires, Nen through habit wants to roll into my hands. It's like diverting a river away from its natural path. Time slogs by, but I spot the first pops of explosive Nen out of the nodes near my wrist bones.

More misfires, but I eventually manage to stick explosive Nen, enough to trigger. I count down three seconds, maneuver the belt to the safe cover of my glove to save my skin—

_Pop!_

A baby of an explosion, but it echoes like a firecracker in the echoic cave. I flex my fingers and arm, ten digits still attached, arm still whole. I smile at the leather belt now burnt beef jerky. I double-check Machi's glove, which to my immense surprise is not even blemished from the explosion. Still good as new. I really need to thank Machi profusely when I return to the surface.

I undo the rest of the ties and hop off the table, a little dizzy on my step from the sudden change in orientation. I fix my lopsided pony tail and wipe my drying tears, and snot.

I throw the door open, enter the shaft and finally see what sort of distance I'm dealing with. I peer up. And up. And _up._ I have to crane my neck as far as I can without losing balance. I'm used to looking up at people but this especially hurts. I see a dim halo of sunlight at the very top. With the sun this far away, I feel like I'm on Pluto.

Wallahae.

I catch myself against the chalky limestone, hanging onto the doorknob, fearful I'd lose it in the darkness. Omokage said I'm closer to Hell than to the surface and seeing the shaft now, I believe it. I pocket one glove and use my Nen as measuring tape. Up, up, and up, it goes and it's depressing to watch. My Nen, reading the stone, like a tongue tastebuds, tastes the gritty grain of sand finally. I'd estimate I am at least 1/3 of a kilometer down.

I'll admit a teeny tiny part of me hoped there was a second lift or I could climb up the shaft via a conveniently placed ladder. Nope. Even if I could climb up, it's impossible when it's so dark—Omokage's flashlight!

I scurry back into the chamber, all too happy to get out of the dark shaft, and bend at the table. Out of a mound of damp sand emerges the flashlight. Under it, placed perfectly there by no accident, I spot a square of paper. There's a line of gritty sandpaper and red-charcoal tipped strips.

Matches.

Why leave these here too? What good are these if I have the flashlight? Even with that in mind, I pocket them just in case.

I approach the flattest patch of the stone, near the vent, wishing to work with a large canvas of stone. I pocket my second glove. My naked hands feel clammy, then dry as I skim them along the stone to get a reading.

Pure limestone, a tough stone that can take an explosion without completely crumbling.

My Nen has always fluently read materials and mediums while I would stab a guess at how much Nen to use to compromise it or obliterate it entirely. If only my Nen could calculate both—

It's so stupidly simple I take the opportunity to clap my forehead.

My canary colored Nen soaks the stone, glittering like gold in the speckles, I pour more in until the faint innervation to stop.

I back away to the opposite side and curl into a ball, covering my head.

If the previous explosion sounded like a firecracker, the next sounds like lightning blasting a mountain. Dust showers my cheek as I carefully peer up from the protection of my arms. I slowly stand, tiptoeing around broken stone and gaze into the circular hole in Earth I just made.

I switch on the flashlight and see the edge of the first leg of my escape tunnel and along the surprisingly smooth walls. I knock on the wall, testing its integrity and sturdiness.

"Wallahae," I pray, inhale a cool breath of air, and before I can change my mind, I step in.

* * *

In the middle of the second leg of the tunnel, my neck and knees begin to ache from crouching in an awkward position.

I pause, short of breath at the tunnel end. I heave in, but even after the third time, my lungs cannot get enough air.

The air has thinned noticeably. One thing in my haste I didn't properly consider: air circulation. It was only luck that I created the cavity near the vent and passing out here is NOT a good idea.

I'm making good time though. I catch my breath for another moment and charge my Nen. I imagine the next stretch: a zag to the zig. Omokage said don't dig straight down so it's good measure that I don't excavate straight up or in one single angle.

Like an egg timer, _ding!_ in my Nen tells me I've poured enough into the wall to blow another leg of the tunnel. I back away and await the kaboom.

I've seen many detonations, I wouldn't paint myself as an expert, but I know enough to know that something has gone horribly wrong when I see a flicker of deathly red in the void.

The world quakes around me and I kiss the world goodbye and wait to be crushed to death. The floor crumbled beneath my face and I manage to catch myself from falling into a fissure in the nick of time—

I watch helplessly as Omokage's flashlight falls down, down, and _down_ into the void. Judging by the light spinning on the narrow walls, the cavity opened wide but tapered at the bottom. The flashlight is too far to reach, but I got lucky. If I had fallen, I would have gone head first, my feet poking out, my arms pinched at my sides and with zero chance of wiggling out. I would have died of toxicity from blood pooling in my head. A MISERABLE way to die. I stiffly push away from the fissure. Draped in even heavier darkness, I can't see my own hand in front of my face.

How did that happen? What the heck was that fire? Where had it come from—

I slap my forehead again.

 _"Watch out for methane."_ Omokage's voice echoes in my head. Remembered one explosion and lost flashlight too late.

I reach into my pocket and take out the matches. THAT had been the purpose for these babies. To test for methane as I dig out.

I tear a match out and light it. I move it, watching the flame, analyzing every flicker, either from my jerky movement or traces of methane. My background only dabbled in natural gases but if I'm right, methane can be burned out. So the explosion probably incinerated enough that this leg of the tunnel is at least safe.

With only the tiny flame for sight, I proceed to recharge to carve out the next leg of the tunnel, asshole puckered, praying wallahae on almost feverish repeat.

* * *

The flame is steady, which is a good sign, but I've lost track of how many tunnel stretches I've made and I haven't checked the depressing number of feet until I break the surface. I started at about 1/3 of a km, which on land is a tiny distance, underground, feels like I'm digging out of the Earth's core.

Even with my maneuvering, making the tunnels closer to the vent and boring oxygen-holes to leak air, I'm short on breath. My fingertip of my thumb and index finger burn from holding lit matches, to avoid the dark, as long as possible. I'm so drained that even with nothing to see in the dark, my mind tricks me and I see wisps of blue, like phantoms in the tunnel. Even when I shut my eyes I see them and my sense of balance see-saws.

I could take a nap. Just a quick one—

A leg jolt like an electric zap strikes down that tempting thought. Like when your body mistakes sleepiness for death and jolts you awake, to keep you alive.

_Keep going. You're closer than you think._

You again lucid voice? But I'm so tired, thirsty and—

_Keep. Going. Shut your eyes now and you'll never reawaken._

It isn't until this moment that I realize how much my exhaustion has seeped in: I'm on my knees crawling now because I've been creating narrower and narrower tunnels whereas before I could almost stand perfectly upright. How do babies do this nonstop for hours?

I can't see anymore and the match has burned out. I fumble with the matchbook, using my thumb to count the stubs and stalk. I have one left. I dare not waste it for light.

I reach out blindly. How can I see what's ahead of me?

_You already know how to see it._

Not this again. I'm tired of this 'figure it out yourself bullshit'. Tell me how I can see!

_What you've been doing this whole time._

Using my Nen to see? Nen with my eyes? Like Gyo? Gyo won't work because I'm not looking for Nen.

No answer.

So use nen in my eyes, but _not-Gyo_. So, enhance my eyes with Nen?

Still no answer.

Nen swims over my sockets and to my surprise, a picture appears. A shadowed outline of the tunnel glows faintly like I'm wearing night goggles. Doesn't cure my night blindness, but I don't have to waste the match. Of course, no Nen except residue from the previous explo—

My sheepish groan bounces in the tunnel. Once again it's a simplicity I willingly blind myself from seeing because I'm too wrapped up in self-doubt.

I touch the wall, driving Nen like roots through the limestone. A yellow luminescent map lights up the tunnel, and beyond and I see it all with Nen-enhanced eyes. I see the distance, feel the top of the bedrock and the grainy sand.

The once insurmountable distance is now nothing more than an eggshell waiting for me to crack—

I channel _alllll_ my will into my Nen and burst out to the surface, to freedom with gusto. The boom of boulders crashing as the ground sunders, and up the sand splays, displacing into two waves like a parted sea. As the grit and dust settle, I slowly withdraw from the protection of my arms and see what I've done.

As the smokescreen clears, the rainbow dawn sky yawns open. I almost choke, it's so beautiful—really, my lungs fill up with so much oxygen-saturated air, but my breathing normalizes. I squint, adjusting to the light as I rise into the newly formed crater in the middle of the open desert landscape. Sand pours into the hole, plugging the tunnel I carved with my sweat and tears.

After crawling and crouching for hours, my joints and muscles pop in glee as I stretch up, reaching for the stars. It is now when I'm breezy like a feather on my feet and chilled from the open air that I comprehend the extent of the punishing pressure and heat underground. I was essentially stuck in a low-powered pressure cooker. Cold wind snake through my uwagi and my scarf until it unravels and escapes from my neck and the hand I outstretch, trying to catch it.

I watch the beige scarf dance in the wind until it disappears forever on the sandy horizon. Unprotected, my nostrils are assaulted with Meteor City's malodor yet I don't want to hurl. Rather, I'm surprised to have smelled it again, after believing I wouldn't again experience the displeasure of Meteor City's stink.

I circle my gaze atop the crest. While it's not a spectacular skyscraper, from this dune, I can see the squarish outline of Meteor City and the spire of the Council HQ and the Phantom Troupe's bell tower in the backdrop of the East.

The situation merits a victorious hurrah, accompanied with a fist bump and a flip of the bird to Fisherman where ever he is. Yet, I'm stuck in the dull throes of disbelief.

I actually did it? I made it out alive?

A small acknowledgment of victory, I unpocket my gloves and wear them with pleasure. A job well done.

I begin to head back towards the cathedral, but my bloodstained shoes sink into the dune as I descend and I pause. Oh right, what started this mess in the first place.

I divert course and head towards, for one last time, Fazier's apartment.

* * *

The sun is above the horizon and hot on my back by the time I approach the cathedral. It is with grueling effort that I crack open the heavy double doors and squeeze through the tiny gap.

I rush to the kitchen, where I, without dignity again, dunk my head into the sink and drink straight from the faucet. I don't know if it's possible to become drunk from water, but I certainly feel inebriated before I realize I'm in the presence of others.

In the lounge, Franklin and Shalnark sit, mouths open and paused midword, now looking like they're gaping at me. Shalnark reacts first. He approaches while his mouth curls into a welcoming smile.

"Oooiii, TNT-san, you've made it back finally." He made a show of checking the very empty doorframe. "Are Feitan and Phinks not with you? They didn't find you?" He scratches his head while fishing out his phone.

I croak a no. I rub my throat to soothe the sudden soreness.

"You have blood on you and reek of decay," says Franklin, quite matter-of-fact. I peer down at my stained shoes and my knees are caked with dried blood. I resemble a serial killer except without the horror music, the crazed eye twitch, and bloodied axe.

"Fazier's blood." I say, urged to correct them that it wasn't MY blood. "I buried Fazier," I say, almost losing my words from a chesty cough.

"Fazier?" They peer at one another.

"I'll...go shower," I say, hacking another cough, yet shamelessly use it as an excuse to not expound further.

I know I'm leaving them chock full of questions, but I happily escape the situation to go bury myself in my room.


	15. Dr. Shalnark

I return to my room and see, sparkling in a divine beam of light, a full pitcher of fresh water. I practically lick it dry. Anyone who has gone days without water knows how sublime tastes when you finally replenish.

I shower and exfoliate until my skin is rubbed raw. The stink of death is sticky and dried blood is a pain in the ass to scrub off and it gets everywhere. I even found some scabs like dandruff on my scalp, probably from when Fisherman or his goons whacked me out cold in Fazier's apartment. I forego a dip in the hot tub because, in addition to my persistent cough, my stomach is now nervously queasy.

My wet coughs disrupt the quiet hall as I waddle back to my room, wrapped in a towel, half wondering what the heck I'm going to wear, half too lurid to care.

Hanging on my chamber door, almost transparent in the daylight, is a cotton  _nemaki_ or basically a bathrobe for sleeping and lounging. My heart swells as I remove it from its hanger. A glad-you're-not-dead gift from Machi? Judging from how it sinches in the right places as I try it on, she remembered my measurements and goodness the material is so heavenly soft it's like being hugged by a cloud. I remember, with a cringe, our last interaction, her words and finger poking in my shoulder, all blunt in delivery. For as cold and brisk as first impressions dictate, every warm gesture from her speaks volumes and I would march to her room (where ever it is in this maze) and thank her properly—

I almost double over into a throat-tearing fit of coughs, expelling green phlegm onto the stone floor. I grab a wad of toilet tissue, clean my mouth and the floor.

Despite being held captive underground without natural light, I immediately shut the curtains over the long panes of colored glass, for the bright light is too stimulating.

Hair still wet, I collapse onto my futon and bundle myself in my  _nemaki_ and comforter like a seaweed-wrapped kimbap. Throughout the next few hours, I vomit twice. I have no substance to throw up but my stomach bloats painfully. While I want more water (throwing up is super dehydrating) I'm too improper to mosey into the kitchen and risk running into someone. I'm not in the mood to relay everything that happened yet. If that water could magically come to ME that would be great—

A rap at the door. I turn my head towards the noise. Judging by the shadow showing through the film, it's someone of medium height (not Uvo, Paku, Omokage or Franklin) with smooth hair styled down (not Machi, Feitan, Phinks or Chrollo).

Another hard, more persistent knock when I don't respond. "Oooi! TNT-san," chippers a voice in sing-song jingle like morning tower bells.

A less-sick me would get up, I swear, but the distance between me and the door is as wide as Yorubia and my stomach burbles  _don't even think about it!_

The moment my throat expands to speak, I cough so hoarsely, I bet the whole cathedral can hear it.

The shadow then shrinks but before I can think they're gone, the knob fidgets and the sound of a thin metal pin shoved into the keyhole, clink and CLICK! The hinges creak and through the door in walks Shalnark, beaming so bright it's as if the sun were inviting itself into my room. Like a miffed nocturnal creature, I almost want to hiss at him for radiating so much exuberance when I'm feeling so unpleasantly queasy. I imagine myself as a green monster, because I'm envious and because I want to hurl.

"Lookie at what I brought you," he says. From behind his back, he brandishes a pitcher, heavy with fresh water, as a peace offering. In his hand, it's a chest of sparkling treasure.

"Hi Shalnark," I rasp, throat feeling thick. Fine. He can come in. He brings gifts.

I wipe the mucus from my glove and from my lip with toilet tissue.

He sets the pitcher aside at my desk and looks at me with unmistakable pity.

Hands perched behind his hips, he ganders at the state of my sunless room. Then he ganders at me, radiating darkness from my corner, and chuckles.

"Awww, you're not feeling good, are you? Franklin and I were concerned about your coughing when we saw you. Thought I could do a Health Check on you."

"Health check?"

"It's one of the many things I do," he says with a wink but try as I might, I can't picture him clad in a white smock. And what the heck sort of health training could he have? Maybe he can see the doubts from my furrowed brows and he asks sweetly, "Do you mind coming out from under there?"

I do mind, but something about his saccharine smile on his soft boyish face, eyes large on his face like a baby fruit bat, exhorts me to try. Compared to the other tough dudes of the Troupe, I wonder how such a baby-face like him hasn't been eaten alive by the others.

I sit up and scoot to the futon edge, resembling a northerner, hooded by my plush comforter. I expect him to palm my forehead or listen to my heart or my mucus saturated lungs with a stethoscope, or something.

Shalnark bends forward, leaning closer and closer until we're nose to nose. It's like he's cataloging my pores or something. I stop an impromptu squeak, but I have to hold my breath to do so. Most people in Meteor City protect their personal space with bearish mauling violence. Not this kid apparently.

In the dim light, his eyes, their hue is a dark stig of pine and my skin tingles when they open wide at me. His pupils swell with piqued interest and right as I sputter something to call attention to his unnerving closeness, I break eye contact by coughing into my glove.

"That's a nasty cough and you're looking a little...yellow," he says. "May I take a look at your arm? I wanna check your vitals."

The air is weighed by the elusive, unspoken words of underlying intentions. Yet sensing no danger, I reluctantly drop the duvet and goosebumps prickle on my clammy skin from the cold stone air that would normally be refreshing on a hot day like today. I fold up my wide quarter sleeve to my bicep and extend my bare forearm to Shalnark, trusting him more than he probably deserves...

"Make a fist," he says and I do.

He steadies my wrist with a firm grip (stronger than I expected) and from the hand behind his back, he whips out a magenta bat-winged needle I remember seeing jabbed in that guy's neck in the alley before they captured me. I see the slender shiny metal with a sharp refined tip, aimed precariously over my arm.

"This might sting. On the count of three," he says while assessing the green veins under sallow skin.

"One, tw—"

I try to squirm away and bat at him, but his grip is strong and before I can intellectualize my rebuffs and exclaim  _what do you take me for?! Don't stab me!_ with dilated pupils and perfect precision, Shalnarks stabs his needle into the crook of my arm.

The no I meant to cry out dries on my numb tongue and the world goes...spacey.

The prick  _itself_  doesn't hurt. Besides the initial shock, it feels no worse than a quick vaccine shot at the doctor's office. What does hurt is the electrical rush of Shalnark's Nen and how it scores through my body like bullets and my Nen loses against his before it even had a chance.

"...there! You now have 10% self-awareness," he says with a satisfied click on his phone. "You can watch what's going on."

I don't know what 10% he's talking about because it's like I've been disembodied or my brain lobotomized, scooped out with a spoon, or my nervous system and the sparks controlling my body have short-circuited. Like the body I've been inhabiting for 21 years doesn't belong to me, like some alien has taken over and disengaged my will with the flip of a remote switch. I find I can blink, but my body feels like a useless sack of meat without bones, muscles or ligaments to hold me up. My head weighs a million pounds and my chin slumps to my collar. I sway to and fro for a moment, but inevitably gravity tips me forward, and I'm about to eat a mouthful of duvet with a teeth bashing dose of floor—

"Whoah, there, gotcha," says Shalnark. He catches me and my head lulls onto his firm chest. "I know it's uncomfortable. Give me thirty seconds and it will all be over."

In his other hand is his batphone. He thumbs the right button combination and the phone beeps.

"Patient detected! Initiating Health Check!" announces the robotic voice. The synthetic female voice reminds me of the railway automated announcements in Zeoul.  _Pleeease mind th_ e  _gap between the train and the platform._

I peer down,  _smelling_  in the lavender and mint appliques of his suit. Are my senses supposed to be cross-wiring like this?

A groan, incoherent and bilious, and I recognize it, thick in my throat.

"Awww, I know, I know. Try to relax," coos Shalnark, his words a split second delayed from the movement of his mouth. His strong muscular arm hauls me up and he wordlessly, with phone in hand, fixes my  _nemaki_  collar that threatens to plunge open. Heat flushes my face. "And try not to think too hard or things can get overstimulating."

Too late, because my head already floods with drunk images of megapolis Zeoul. The pictures pop in the corner of my vision, Shalnark the center of the frame, with city noise like paint smears on the periphery.

The tapered bat eyes glow video-game yellow as a robotic voice announces, finally, "Health Status Check completed!"

He plucks the antenna and the world zooms fast as I'm vacuumed back into my body. This time I really do fall face first into the comforter and almost drool. You're an asshole, Shalnark. I feel jimmied by his needle and nen, like how he jimmied the door lock. I manage to sit up, still loopy, all reminiscent of Paku's memory bomb.

The phone's robotic voice reads aloud. "Health Results: Slight fever: 38 degrees Celcius. Heart rate 140/90. Liver function compromised. Elevated levels of toxic chemicals in bloodstream."

"Heeeh! Just as I thought. You, TNT-san, have a mild case of TNT-poisoning. Sah, you must have used a lot of Nen last night."

That was a lot of well-aimed guesses, perfectly hitting the bull's eye, that my loopy head can't keep up. "Wait, how did you-?"

"Franklin and I awakened to the earthquakes last night and naturally assumed it was you."

"Naturally assumed?" I repeat, in disbelief to have heard no sarcasm in his perky voice.

He unveils, from out of ether because it came from nowhere, a bottle of pills with a Japanese label I can't read. "These should help clear up the poisoning and save your liver from being shot." He opens the bottle and plucks out the cotton padding and squawks at the pills the size of grapes. "These are enormous, like horse pills! Here, I'll refill your glass."

I pop a pill into my mouth and wash it down with plenty of water.

I take back what I said before. Shalnark is definitely not some asshole kid. Behind that deceptively smiley face, there IS some real tenderness and sweetness.

"Thank you, Shalnark."

"No problem. Got them for you and Machi in case there were problems with exposure."

"Has Machi complained about any symptoms?"

"Machi wouldn't complain if she did. Your case is different. You're swimming in your Nen."

"This isn't my first bout of TNT poisoning."

Genuine pity on his face and with a measure of relief, I find it's one of the rare moments I've felt understood among the Troupe. I bet most of them think I'm caviling about nothing.

Shalnark smoothes his blond hair. "I did some research and learned about TNT poisoning. Was gonna ask if you ever had it. Welp, can see why you aren't too fond of it. Sounds pretty uncomfortable. It  _is_  treatable so as long we stay alert we can keep you healthy."

Before I can respond, he scrolls to the bottom and a row of worrisome-red text reflects in his eyes.

"Hmmm. Says here, your serotonin levels are a tad low. What's the matter? Feeling a little down with Monday blues and need to talk about it?"

I react a little defensively. "I was trapped in a cave for a whole day and honestly believed I was going to die. No one would feel sunny after that."

"Oh ok, if you say so," he says and complements his words with a cartoonish smile, I, in my 21 years of life, haven't seen on a real person. Smiles use more muscles than frowns yet, there's a crazed tightness when he holds the expression. His eyes perk into crescent moons as the bones of his face widen to accommodate his enlarged mouth. The ends of his mouth twist inward, a mix between a Smiling Chinese Beckoning cat and the Cheshire cat. It's eery enough to make me think it's a creepy facade to placate me—nevermind my earlier observation, I know  _exactly_  how this babyface survived with the other Troupe members.

He blinks out of it, but there's a nearly tangible tense stillness in the air.

"So..." he says and looks at me expectantly.

"So?" I half want to ask him to leave so I can rest more.

"So, aren't you going to bore me with the miraculous details of your escape?" He pours me another glass of water and throws the covers over himself too as if he's joining a slumber party.

Once again, his ebullience wears down my sour resistance, his honey to my vinegar. I still haven't pinned down an opinion about this perky kid—I remember his toned arms, he's definitely not a kid... and his chest is not the worst place my head has collided with—but I can't decide if his sunny humor is annoying or endearing.

I'm gonna have to tell somebody what the heck happened, might as well be the Manipulator with the sharp antenna...

Barring the Nen hallucinations, I share everything with him. Even about Omokage.

"Ahhh, he was there too huh?"

"So you knew I was captured?"

"It was obvious when you didn't return after a couple of hours," he says with a nod like it's no big deal. "I estimated your success rate at 90% and thought you'd be back in twelve hours, not eighteen. I should have been more gracious with the hours or else I would have won the bet."

"Bet?"

"We had a pool going. Either you were going to make it back on your own, or Feitan and Phinks were going to drag you back after they found you. Omokage placed his bet on you making it out fine by yourself."

I shut my eyes so hard I almost see stars. You mean to tell me that Omokage didn't help me because he didn't want to lose a bet?! Feitan and Phinks were looking for me?

"Wait, so no one bet that I was going to die there?"

"Why? The smart money was on you making it back one way or another. Just a question of when."

I'm not sure whether to feel touched that they were so confident in me, or horrified that they waged a bet on me... Come to think of it, the water refilled by Pakunoda and the _nemaki_  left by Machi were left here before I returned... They were  _that_ sure I was coming back?

"Dare I ask...who bet what?"

Shalnark counts on his fingers. Now I really do feel like I'm gossiping at a slumber party.

"Phinks and Feitan said they were going to find you first. Franklin and Uvo were neutral. I said if you didn't return within twelve hours, then that would mean you were waiting for Fisherman. Everyone else said without question you would return on your own."

Including Danchou?

Shalnark palms my forehead. "Are you feeling more feverish? Your face went pink all of a sudden."

I ignore the implications of that. "Actually, I think the pills are helping. My appetite is starting to return."

"Goodie, I can text Franklin to go ahead and bring the lunch he prepared for you."

I picture the bulky man quietly in the kitchen, spreading a layer of brown mustard on a slice of bread. He prepared lunch for me? Shalnark mashes keys on his phone, his thoughts morphing into Japanese kanji on his screen.

"Shalnark, you're on your phone an awful lot," I say.

"You could say that," he says. "Something on your mind?"

"Are you good with tech?"

"I would say I'm decent, why?"

"Do you...know how to use a computer?"

"Oh?" He gawks at me like I'm an alien and I know I just said something embarrassingly stupid.

For a second, Shalnark contains his fitful mirth, but it's no use and he busts out laughing. He hugs his belly like it's going to burst and that he would suffocate if he can't get a breath in. I shrink into my sheets, wishing for a black hole to conjure beneath me, suck me in, and save me from the embarrassment.

"No, I'm not laughing—" He laughs even harder. "I'm not laughing at you." He says and heavily pats a reassuring hand on the top of my hair. "You're cute, Safra. To answer your question, of course, I know how to use one. Most people these days know the working basics."

"Think you could ever show me how?" I ask, shyly. I would hate to give him another attack of the giggles...

"I have a pc here, but these days I mostly stick with this. Not quite a computer, but definitely as strong as one." He flashes his batphone. "I'm never without my phone." He says before passing me his phone, affirming I know he is basically entrusting me with his third arm.

I cradle it with two hands accordingly. Evenly weighted, bright and crisp screen like a mini HD tv, and smooth magenta chrome finish on the square body.

"Um, how does it work?"

"Touch the screen."

I lightly press my finger and the screen vibrates. I tap the buttons with utmost care, avoiding too much pressure.

"Obviously don't be rough with it, but it can take a fair amount of abuse. It's not gonna explode or anything—" he says but stops to rethink. "You're wearing your gloves so I shouldn't be worried right?"

I smile and snort a laugh.

The icon moves at my touch. I change the screen again to the first page then change it again. I flip the pages like pages in a book. Shalnark tells me to press the globe icon.

 _This_  I've seen before. The internet browser. Bunches of bright words litter the page, all Japanese besides a few kanji characters the small font is gibberish.

I see pictures of socialites, only one or two I recognize from the glossy magazines in West Gorteau.

"Here let me," says Shalnark, and he taps furiously on the phone and the page refreshes.

Suddenly the gibberish switches to Gortese. There's something odd about seeing my 'ancient' language transcribed into digital links on a page.

Soft amazement from me.

Shalnark snickers. He tells me he built his phone. ("Scratch that, I  _assembled_ it.") He picked out the screen, the chips, hardware, software, and then integrated it with his Nen.

"Think I could get a phone?" I ask, returning his bat-phone.

"Oh! That would be a good idea! Maybe you could have called for help or something."

"Think someone would have come?"

"Of course. Phinks and Feitan would if they knew. They are responsible for you after all."

He doesn't have to glance at me to feel the suspicion emitting from me in waves.

He sighs. "I know, but trust me, they are good comrades. If you had called they would help. They  _would_ call you a useless piece of crap who can't handle their crap, but they would answer the call and help."

If that was supposed to weaken my distrust, it  _doesn't_  work. Another snicker from Shalnark.

"Come to think of it, the kidnappers probably would have thought to check your pockets, but for good measure, you need a phone." He playfully hits his palms on his forehead. "I can't believe I didn't think to ask Danchou to pick one up for you from the markets during his shopping trip."

"Danchou?" I remember. Omokage mentioned they were out of Meteor City.

Before I can pry for details, Shalnark snaps his fingers. "That reminds me, Danchou has a mission for you."

"I thought that much was clear?"

"No, not his mysterious caper. Something smaller. They're shipping in supplies from outside the city. They need you to clear the landmines so they can make the transfer safely."

"Does he know I've made it back?"

"He asked before but said for me to tell you when you returned. Said it shouldn't be hard for you. If we're encased in a ring of fire, all they need is for you to create a hole in the circle."

Encroaching thuds on the stone floor that I immediately assume to be Franklin.

"Oh good, you can get started after lunch!" says Shalnark jumping off the futon to open the door.

* * *

Shalnark's pills do help and after lunch, I feel 60% back to my normal self. Franklin insisted on opening the curtains then he and Shalnark drew a map and circled which road to clear. The supplies are going to be shipped by freight cars and Danchou needs about 3 kilometers cleared.

I bristle and say something that I don't believe I can get that much road cleared in time.

Franklin cups the top of my head, like a golfball with his enormous hand. A reassuring gesture or brow-beating one I'm not sure... His fingers curled around my crown gave a hollow  _clang_ near his middle knuckles, nor do they feel squishy like regular fingers.

With his deep voice he says, "If you can clear a pathway underground, you can clear a road. Keep in mind lot of the area has already been cleared by... _martryrs._ It's all in your hands, Safra. You'll do just fine."

No nonsense this Franklin.

"Danchou also decreed that you're going to get help," Shalnark adds but fails to mention any names.

They both leave me to get ready and change my clothes, I can't help but feel I was volunteered for a job I did not sign up for. Also, where did Shalnark get off in saying that clearing 3 kilometers of land is a 'small' errand?

I buck up and start getting dressed.

My shoes are stained beyond repair (unless someone keeps a Super-Nen powered washing machine around here...) but at least they're dry. Amazingly, my gloves and uwagi are pristine like both are fresh from the dry cleaners.

I want to know how I managed to get blood all over my arms, bare legs, and even my toenails, but not one single flack of blood stuck to Machi's uwagi.

Seriously. I even tested it out of morbid curiosity when I had bathed by running my blood stained palm all over the trim. Wet blood just scaled the surface until it dripped right off, refusing to stick or submerge itself in the fibers as if the fabric were nonporous plastic.

Thankfully, my beautiful brocade obi had been spared gory horrors.

I don't feel any special nen woven into this fabric but seriously, I must know the secret of how Machi keeps her whites so crisp.

Maybe it's a pipedream, but I wonder if I can get Machi to design and craft a whole wardrobe of nen couture for me—

Another knock at my door. This time the shadow is spiky haired and I steel my nerves. I had hoped to reach out to  _her._

I hasten to hang my  _nemaki_  instead of leaving it as a wrinkled ball tangled with my sheets. "Come in," I say, setting the hanger perfectly in the purifying beam of light.

Machi emerges from the hall and ganders at the obviously disheveled use of my chamber. If she has a sour opinion of it, it doesn't show on her perma-bitch face.

"Shalnark gave me a sick note on your behalf," she says, without a proper hi, not that I expected one...

She leans against the wall, bending one leg. We talk a bit about Shalnark's visit. ("He gave you a healthcare check?" She grimaces and her shoulders tighten. "It's a rite of passage.  _Everyone_ hates it in the Troupe.")

I mean to say something, but saved by a cough, I pound my chest to clear my breathing passages. When I can muster it, I say "T-thank you, by the way for that." I gesture to the  _nemaki_  that had made my return a little easier.

She holds the perma-bitch face for another moment, then sighs. "He told me everything. How you escaped. We all felt the earthquakes. The ground tremored the whole night." Her brilliantly blue eyes bore into mine, one trying to gaze into one's soul and contextualize a person's existence. "You really suffered last night, didn't you?"

I inhale a deep breath, my words beset by difficulty.

"There isn't a single one of us in the Troupe who hasn't suffered for their Nen," says Machi. "I'm not sure what gave you the impression that Nen is a smooth ride for anyone who isn't you. I didn't integrate with my Nen ability until—" She bunches her left sleeve and runs a finger along her humorous bone.

Without thinking about it, my eyes swim with Nen and I see it. It's not a scar, but rather a hairline fissure on her Nen body stretching from her elbow to shoulder socket. "Until?" I beckon.

"Until an accident and I was going to lose my arm. I wished so bad that I could sew my shattered arm, shredded muscle and broken skin back together,  _so I did_. I dug into my pin cushion, threaded a line for Nen stitches. Before, I had only ever experimented with clothes, trapping and strangling enemies." She flexes her hand, tensing the network of muscles in her arm. "What I can do now in fifteen seconds, took me three agonizing hours."

Something spoils in my stomach and not from the TNT-poisoning. I've had stitches before but at least I had solace in the fact that the needle was in someone else's hand and the pain was out of my control. My eyes water at the mere image of thread and nen piercing my flesh. I would chicken out if I had to do the stitches myself. I notice I had been unconsciously rubbing the red dot where Shalnark had stabbed with  _his_ needle.

"You were right by the way," I say finally. "A lot of my problems with Nen came from problems with myself. I'm going accept my Nen as it is, bury my qualms, and continue to develop my abilities."

Machi isn't the smiling type (it would seem Shalnark does enough smiling for everyone in the Troupe) but her expression laxes with an undeniable contentment and relief.

"Sah, we'll continue your training after you finish Danchou's mission." She stands upright, crossing into the doorframe to leave.

"Do you know how to get there? When should we head out?"

"We?" Machi peers over her shoulder and hikes up an angular brow. "I'm not the one helping you. I didn't lose the bet. Losers of the bet help newbie."

I recount Shalnark telling me the takers of each bet and die a little inside. Behind her back and her long tail of cotton-candy hair, I make a choking gesture at my own neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've wanted to write this chapter especially after the heavy emotional content of the previous chapters. It was refreshing and fun to write some Shalnark, baby-face of the Troupe. Sorry (not sorry) for fangirling over toned-Shalnark. He's a cutie...and erm, hard to read despite his deceptive smiles. More Nen Improvision from me with Shalnark's abilities. He seems like that kid who is chock full of facts so I like the medic role for him. TNT-poisoning is a real thing and unfortunately, it's a drawback to Safra's abilities. Poor Safra, she's been back for 5 mins and she's gonna get stuck laboring in the open desert with Feitan and/or Phinks and she owes them an apology and they're Kings of Petty in this fic. On the plus side, Safra is shaping up nicely as PT newbie. I hope you got a kick out of this Shalnark-saturated chapter and I'd love to hear from more of you on Ao3.
> 
> To Hisoka fans, I have two oneshots featuring him you should totally check out if you haven't already!


	16. Pharaohs and Undermine Humor

I follow Machi in the hall, her hair an azalea in the watery light.

"Here's my survival tip for today," she says. "If you wanna understand how Phinks and Feitan work, you must think from their perspective. They're living by the script of Meteor City, one they know by heart."

"You mean _we accept everything so take nothing from us?_ "

"I mean how Meteor Citizens treat each other: _Closer than family, more distant than strangers_."

I blink at her, dumbly. Either that's a paradox or my Japanese sucks (or both).

"Puzzled are we?" A tiny semblance of a smile on her beige bud mouth. "You're nothing but a distant stranger to them," she says. "A stranger with dangerous abilities, who can't fully control her Nen yet. The Spider and the city are held at the mercy of your whims, in their dense heads at least."

"The City?"

In the pregnant silence, she's about to pause and explain, but instead, she shrugs. "Seeing is better than being told and the ugly cracks will begin to show once you go outside."

* * *

Abiji told me that Nen categories have natural affinities for one another. At the edge of the tunnel, Phinks and Feitan's Nen silhouettes smolder together and blend beautifully like watercolors.

They're gruff to each other, but one glimpse at their harmonious Nen and even an inexperienced user, like me, could see they're best bros.

Hell-bent on haughty appearances, resting against the wall, neither regard us until Machi clears her throat.

Feitan's suspicious gaze pins me to the wall, the stone cold against my shoulder blades through my thin frock.

"So," croaks Feitan.

"So what?" I ask.

"Did you ever learn how to transmute fucks to give?"

Shots are already fired and yet instead of rushing to nurse my ego, I suppress a chuckle. I don't even feel connected to the person who said those words to him.

"Even better," I say. "I transmuted my way out."

"Blind squirrel finds its nut," says Feitan.

I clamp my gob shut. Don't make it worse, Safra. They're gonna have their fun and you still owe them an apology.

Phinks, in desert robes rather than his usual tracksuit, stands to his full towering height and I see in detail what I had initially missed in the dim tunnel light. A GINORMOUS yellow cobra dresses his head and red gems for eyes judge me through slit-pupils. I crane my neck to visually ride every curve of the gold, the intricately patterned glassy-green stone that adorns Phinks' broad shoulders.

Phinks catches me staring at his crown and but surprisingly, he does _not_ glower at me. Rather, he lifts his chin higher, striking a pose in profile.

Pft, show off.

Another impressive presence emerges from the lounge.

"What's with the knapsack, Franklin?" asks Machi, drawing attention to the blue canvas bag, the straps hooked around Franklin's large fingers.

"You must not have liked your sandwich, Safra," says Franklin, his authoritative bass weakened by a slightly hurt tone. "You only ate half."

Strained and embarrassed, I rush to correct him, "I liked it, Franklin. I ate as much as I could."

Into my hands goes the knapsack and it isn't the weight that socks the breath out of me with an _oomph_ but Franklin's inhuman strength. He blankets his giant palm on the top of my head; a gesture I assume is for tender reassurance. "Half a sandwich won't carry you through today."

I give the contents a gentle shake. A _swoosh_ of bottled water and solid _bop_ of something in a rubber container.

"Did you _seriously_ pack her a lunch?" asks Phinks.

I stare down at the blue canvas knapsack and then at my toes pointing inward, in the same way they did on my first day of school when my mother gave me my lunchbox.

I'm…touched.

"I packed you _all_ something," says Franklin. "And again, half a sandwich won't be enough energy to finish the job. Nor should Shalnark's pills be taken on an empty stomach."

So Franklin read the bold scary red text on the medicine bottle before Shalnark delivered my first dose.

"Is this 'poisoning' contagious?" asks Phinks with a wrinkled nose.

Machi scoffs. "If I'm not experiencing symptoms, you'll be fine as long as you don't start rubbing it into your skin like soap."

_His skin._ Shit, I almost forgot... "He means his...cuff."

I use _gyo_ and with refined vision the incense of my nen coils around his wrist like a strange bangle.

"Well? WILL _I_ get poisoned from this or NOT?" Phinks asks more aggressively, extending his cuffed arm out for presentation as if I could simply take a key and free him.

"Phinks, do you really want the first time she tries taking it off to be _on_ your wrist?" asks Machi. "Again, I've worked with her Nen closely and no symptoms."

"You can ask Shalnark for some of those meds," says Franklin. "If you're that worried."

I should breathe easier, but I cough dryly in the echoic hall, surrounded by watchful Spiders. They were quick to shush Phinks' concerns, but...I sympathize with his worries.

"Keep in mind," says Machi. "Danchou won't return until nightfall. He specifically asked that Saf be there waiting for their return."

The fever I thought long gone inflames in my torso and if it were easier for my skin to flush I'd be rosy as Machi's hair. "Oh, he asked that I…be there…?"

"Enough jabbering," says Phinks. "It's 4 o'clock. You've wasted half the day."

"She wasted no time getting captured yesterday though," says Feitan.

I groan inwardly. Now would be a suitable time to apologize. Tied underground I swore I would make amends. I'm about to recite it when Feitan interrupts.

"We wondered when you disappeared. Thought maybe you skipped town," says Feitan. "Without this—" Gold's genteel _tink_ I'd recognize anywhere. On Feitan's pale finger, looped around the middle knuckle, dangles my stolen keepsake.

My breath bristles between parted parched lips.

Forget holding calm composure. My fingers claw under the hem of my glove, dying to peel it off—

"Don't pick a fight with her," says Machi, serrated with warning.

Feitan curtains his hand with his sleeve and _poof!_ a magic trick, my keepsake disappears from his palm.

My apology and the will to recite it vanishes like my keepsake from Feitan's hand.

…I'm not apologizing to the goons who stole my keepsake.

"We have wasted enough time," I say. I wear my knapsack on my back. I then take the scarf Machi mended for me and wrap my face and the base of my ponytail like a mummy. I go to the entrance, push all my weight against the door and the wind blows through my billowy desert robes.

"I'm sure we'll have a _blast_ ," says Feitan.

They don't see me chew on my scarf as we step out together onto the unforgiving desert.

* * *

It's market time in Meteor City. The narrow aisles teem with bargain hunters and merchants vying for business. Baubles, beads, silverware, glassware, fabric bolts, power fans and so on. I avoid these parts during peak hours, opting not to get elbowed in the ribs. However, people move in deference in front of Phinks and Feitan, the path clearing like the Red Sea. Passersby regard them then pan down to me as if there's a picture to behold and I fell out of frame.

"That's the _new_ one," I heard like a chant each time a passerby's attention lingered on me. Gossip moves fast among the crows in Meteor City.

In terms of fitness, I'm so-so, not an athlete, but growing up I could throw boys twice my size like rag dolls, and pummel them purple with my tiny fists.

However, twenty minutes in and my waist cramps when I match Phinks' slippery gait. Up and down countless flights of stairs, through slanted, rocky roads jabbing through my thin soles.

Feitan and I are similar in size, but the world rolls smooth beneath him as if his feet didn't even touch the ground under his heavy tunic. Me, with my pigeon toes and growing exasperation, I sorta waddle rather than walk. The fabric sheen makes him look even hotter...bad choice of words. The shine of his heavy tunic reflects the white sunrays like the automobile shades on every parked car in Zeoul. Now I understand how Feitan stays so cool.

Pure unfiltered sunlight chases across the gold of Phinks' snake-thing and pierces my pupils like a hot rod. Solid gold I bet.

"What's with the hat?" I ask Feitan.

Feitan's brows upturn, two black devil horns on his forehead. "He'll snap your neck if he hears you calling it a hat. It's his _Pharaoh_ headdress. His namesake."

Now it all makes sense. Feitan's tunic serves some utility, loose and comfortable, but with a warning sign to _keep away_ plastered on his collar. Meanwhile, Phinks is decorated, fine with attracting jealous eyes. Even his desert robes are tailored to his size, hugging his muscular physique (whereas I'm a dark-haired ruler in a potato sack). His headdress weighs some 10kg I bet so he's peachy with sacrificing comfort for gilded aesthetic.

My thighs cry as we ascend another mountain of stairs.

Debris peppers my hair. I dust it off without a second thought, but more rubble lands on my glove. I peer up and squint at the culprits.

Overlapping voices, clanging metal tools and workers navigating scaffolding, swinging on the rods and dashing through the planks...

Bedraggled laborers scrape their trowels on a crack marring the Northern face of a cookie-cutter residential building. Then I see more buildings under emergency construction. More fissures, fractures, and cracks, every which way I turn. It's fine to see one scaffolding crew any day in Meteor City but a dozen?

What's with all the cracks in infrastructure?

* * *

The landscape flattens (thank god, no more stairs!) as we approach the most iconic structure in Meteor City. I think it's the Council dithering around in biohazard-suits, but the MC Council HQ creeps me out. Gortese culture, says buildings beset by tragedy, injustice, and unresolved anger emit unpleasant energies sensed by the living. Again, totally not superstitious or anything…but I think the HQ is one such building.

Hundreds of corpses lie abandoned on their lawn, as they were when I arrived weeks ago.

The tallest building in Meteor City, architected like a house of worship, but instead, it's a dark memorial.

Near the iron gate encircling the lawn, a councilman in an air-tight hazmat suit and gas mask is peering off into the distance. The councilman straightens his posture in recognition at Phinks and Feitan. Neither brighten at the prospect of meeting with him, but the interaction at such a close distance is unavoidable.

"Any update on the landmine situation?" asks a muffled voice that reminds me of Franklin, but a tad crisper.

"We're _handling_ it," says Phinks, curtly, leaving no room to entertain additional questions.

That seems to satisfy the councilman, but as the others turn to leave I practically pounce on him. "Excuse me, do you know what is happening with the corpses?"

I point over the iron bars, at the linen-draped bodies and the dead flowers as rotten as the cadavers they adorned.

I expect Phinks and Feitan to thunder over and demand I shut up. However, for the first time, they look at me with quiet intrigue and curiosity.

"Many are martyrs," says Mr. Air-Tight. "We haven't decided yet how to memorialize their bodies. The Council is debating on the handling process and whether to cremate or embalm."

That's a suitable answer…to anyone who isn't a mortician's daughter.

"Do you have a mortician overlooking the process?" I ask innocently, already knowing the answer.

"The Council is overlooking the process."

"So you don't have a real mortician?"

"All you need to know is that the _Council_ is overlooking the process." He shifts around; the stiffness of his suit hinders his movement.

I circle around him, sand smoking upward from my dash. I'm speaking to a heartless tin-man but it helps to imagine his human eyes behind his visors that are round and protruding like a mosquito.

"Well, you need to tell them that it's too late to embalm and prettify these corpses. Have you talked with the next-of-kin and heard what they want?"

"Some of the bodies still need identification, so next-of-kin is a few steps ahead. They can't be moved until they're claimed."

"How will you perform a post-mortem identification? Birthmarks, hair, eye color…a feast for the maggots. You need to move these corpses _now_ —"

I backpedal, going cross-eyed at his glove now flat in front of my nose. A glove so thick I'm reminded of a space-suit.

"I cannot ordain anything. The bodies cannot be moved until a procedure is decided by the Council." He lowers his glove. "Our hands are tied."

In utter frustration I yank down my scarf, so he can witness the conviction on my naked face.

"Be frank! Do you have no shame? For leaving your comrades out there in this hellish heat?"

My irritation, without a proper outlet, now turns inward and ravages _me_. It's futile. I'm not even speaking to a real human, but some bureaucratic robot parroting 'sorry, but there's nothing we can do.'

For this, I picked the wrong moment to let my guard down and for that reason, I could have never guessed his next question.

I see my double reflection in his visors when he leans over and asks, "What is your name?"

My lips fall open, but then a blur and a hand that can squeeze my shoulder into juice catches me. "Again, enough with the jabbering!" demands Phinks. "We're leaving even if I have to drag you out of here myself."

Protruding bug eyes watches us leave and my unsaid words ride with the grains of sand in the unruly wind.

The rank of the city bakes on me and I can't bear Meteor City and its inefficiencies.

"Don't waste a single huff on them," says Phinks. "They'll never change."

"Safra was so uncharitable to him," says Feitan, but...am I mistaken or is there deviant solidarity in him towards me?

"Leaving comrades out there like garbage," I murmur. "How he could just stand there and not care...?"

"Why do _you_ care so much?" asks Phinks. "They're strangers to you."

My heart fills with a powerful conviction. "I am a foreign stranger to them and I still would bury them with the same propriety as I would a family member."

I intended to evoke a reaction and yet no response, not even so much as a head nudge from them.

* * *

I wonder why Phinks led us through Meteor City and not around it, but the moment we're out of the cover of the buildings, the _why_ blows through my robes. When the desert expanse yawns open, the wind gusts at me as if it purposely wanted to lift me up like a kite.

Phinks sighs, facing the translucent sky. "It's going to rain."

Does Phinks have cataracts? There's not even the tiniest cloud puff up there. The sun drops heat on us like a heated blanket and there's so little humidity in the air, my lips chap. The only things mistakable for dark clouds are the black wings of many crows circling in flight like vultures.

Phinks surveys the landscape. " _Yoosh_ , this is it."

No sooner than when he says it, I hear the buzzing of buried landmines. If one landmine is a whistle, a bunch is a military marching band.

I tug at the points of my glove fingers until they slip off. I pocket them and roll up my sleeves to my shoulders. The heavy knapsack plops in the sand.

"I recommend staying behind the backpack," I say.

"We don't take orders from you," snits Phinks.

"Wasn't an order, but a recommendation. You know, only listen if you like your limbs intact. Unless, as you said Feitan, you really want to have a _blast_."

It's too early to do an accurate count with the buzz, but I reckon there are over ten landmines in this small patch of land.

I bend over in the sand and get to work.

* * *

For all the grief the Troupe gives me for being an amateur Nen user, not knowing basic concepts or control, disarming landmines is the one aspect of my ability they cannot question.

An hour into it, I have six disarmed landmines piled up like a six-tiered cake.

Sweat dapples my scarf and I fan it for some air. I look over my shoulder at Feitan and Phinks who despite their protests to my recommendation, have stayed where I told them. Feitan reads. The book judging by the black cover, scarlet title, and...erhm _graphic_ image isn't one for children or the faint of heart.

Phinks, regal with his headdress and lax horizontal posture gives the impression of bored royalty. He smokes and gazes contemplatively into the blue distance as if he yearns for Danchou to return sooner if only to end the question of waiting.

I proceed to the next buzz in the sand. There is something different about how it drones, lower with wider frequencies like a blue whale's echo under the sea.

I toss handfuls of sand aside until I see burnished silver, a color that doesn't belong in the desert. I sweep and sweep until the whole landmine reveals itself.

Most landmines I touch in Meteor City are cased with green plastic and are no bigger than an ashtray. This hulk of a landmine is the size of an urban manhole and cased with metal.

"Why does that one look different?"

I jump a little with an embarrassing squeak. "Feitan, please don't sneak up on me when I'm working with live explosives. Anyway, _those_ landmines are called anti-person landmines. No explanation needed. Well, this dangerous bastard is for bigger targets. This could take fully-armored tanks and obliterate them to smithereens."

"How strong?"

Oh, you want a more graphic image? "This could blow a whale's face off and made it look like it went through a meat crusher.

His face laced with shadows from his hair and color, I can still see the swelling of his eyes like poisoned gooseberries.

"So they specifically put those here to disrupt the shipment of supplies," says a husky voice and bored royalty parks it next to us.

"It's crowded. You two, leave."

"Wanna watch," says Feitan.

"This isn't a playground. I need to concentrate. I like being able to count to ten on my fingers." Neither move.

A narrow row of cigarette smoke swarms my face and I bat at it. It's laced with minty menthol and I inwardly groan.

"Please don't. Fire plus TNT equals bad."

Lazy Phinks angles his arm behind him, which does zilch because the smoke (almost with purpose) swarms my nose.

"Wallahae," I pray extra hard and start.

I'm not a sadist (Feitan is king in that regard) but my usually careful hand is a fiend as it turns the screws and the agonizing screech is nails against a chalkboard.

I wiggle the casing until the pressure plate separates from the bottom component. The three of us peer inside, our eyes bespeckled at the goldmine. A solid block of crystal TNT, as glittery as the jewels encrusted on Phinks _Nemes,_ possibly the largest chunk I've ever seen. I give them a moment to take in the mechanics; the fuse that would be sparked from the spring supported the X pressure plate.

Nen gloves my hands with fiery embers. I pluck out the fuse, the spring and finally, the main charge. Now, this remnant of war is nothing more than a hunk of metal lost in the desert.

"Can the TNT still blow even without all that stuff?" asks Phinks.

"With impact or a fuse, yes, but it's much safer now. Why?"

"I watched you beat the side until the fuse popped out. Would you say that these could take a decent amount of...dishevelment? Could I take a trowel and bang on it?"

I don't like where this is going.

"...I don't recommend hitting it, but you can handle pretty much anywhere on the mine, as long as you don't press the pressure plate."

"So just avoid hitting the weird X on the front?"

I _really_ don't like where this is going. "What are _you_ up to?"

" _What_?" The glassy-green stone shimmering as he coils to his feet really does resemble a cobra's hooded neck expanding in defense against my accusatory tone. "I'm thinking of a quicker way to find these babies."

There's a plan in his mind's eye and I'm blind to it but his face darkens wickedly in an expression I recognize from my rambunctious youth. The same face drunk off dangerous delight when I leaped from heights without looking.

Phinks begins to stretch his right arm, winding it up like a turn-key in a wind-up toy. The motion is an ordinary one but there's a motivated intent behind it I can't ignore.

Feitan sighs. "How like him to try and _punch_ the problem away."

"Punch _what_ away?"

"You might wanna duck," he says. " _Just a recommendation."_

The skin of Phinks' right hand glows molten, white-hot like the sun above us. Wind snakes up his arm, rotating faster and faster with each swing. Ancient Pharaohs were believed by their subjects to have the power to wield the weather to their bidding. Phinks took the sandy wind and made it his own and now, on his winding arm spins a funnel sparking with electricity.

The crows scatter for cover. Feitan glides away on fast feet. I can only follow helplessly before Phinks unleashes his charged Nen through the valley of landmines. The funnel, only the length of his arm, reaches for the sky, now a dust devil in its own right.

The column's force impacting the ground jostles me off my feet —Feitan clutches my elbow and anchors me beside him.

The look on his face is Feitan-flavor with a pinch of smugness, reading of _I told you to duck_.

The commotion is a train roar and a tidal wave sloshing against your eardrums. The force is fighting from being swept into a rushing river by clinging desperately to a boulder (Feitan is the boulder in this case).

"What's he doing?!" I exclaim, my loose robes whipping at me.

"Something really dumb or really smart," he murmurs against me.

"Please tell me he can control that thing?!"

No answer.

I should protect my face, but I watch through my sheer beige scarf in morbid horror and fascination at the slate cyclone rising higher and higher, wider and wider.

When I thought it couldn't get any more deadly and impressive, like a pent breath, the storm exhales and loses angular momentum. The dying funnel dissipates and the collected debris spreads into the distant desert.

A mirage in the settling smoke, Phinks hasn't moved since he unleashed the cyclone, still kneeling like a pitcher carefully watching his throw spinning in midair.

I hadn't realized how much the sky had darkened until the return of the sun's rays; a light too bright.

Feitan releases me and if I weren't so disoriented I would have uttered a thank you. Round granular spots on my vision-wallahae, sand in my eyelashes. My hair hangs like I blow dried on the hottest setting after washing it with sand. I beat my tresses like a towel, I give myself a good shake and then redo my ponytail.

Feitan, apparently absolutely infallible, elegantly dusts the dirt from his tunic like brown sugar.

Phinks sets his hands on his hips and turns to beam arrogantly at me and Feitan with perhaps the closest approximation to a smile I've ever seen on him. Unlike Shalnark, Phinks' facial muscles restrict the expression and split his face clumsily. Phinks should leave the smiling to Shalnark.

"That should be all of them." He jabs his thumb over his shoulder. Curiously dazed, I lean around him, unsure of what disaster I'll see.

The landmines formerly buried are now uncovered lily pads floating atop the sand's surface. Not one had exploded. There they are, visible and ready to be disarmed.

I'll be damned. This will forever stay private, but he has decent aim. He uncovered the field, yet the landmines I disarmed are still perfectly stacked and the knapsack is peppered with sand, yet still where I dropped it.

Anticipation now on his smiling face, awaiting choked praise from me.

"Wah-why?" Is all I can muster.

"Your way would have taken forever. We would have lost sunlight by the time you found them all."

Stay calm. Don't yell at them. "You should have told me beforehand. You should have left the mines to me."

"Are you saying we're _undermining_ you?" asks Feitan.

"Feitan," I bristle but cut myself off. I swipe the sweat from my forehead. My thinning patience and this callousness is doing more damage than the heat.

"So should we drag them over and get this over with?" asks Phinks.

"That's a horrible idea," I say but it falls on deaf ears.

"Who can pluck more out?" asks Feitan.

"A race?" Phinks smile corrupts into a competitive sneer.

"Don't you goons dare!" Now imagining exploding lily pads and blown fingers, I finally find my footing. "You dolt! Do you know what you could have done?!"

"Pft," says Phinks "What's the worst that could have happened?"

"Do you know how dominos work? Accidentally nudge one and they all fall down? If one had exploded they all might have exploded. Then that debris splaying in the distance would have been our ashes!"

"I already know explosives can explode." The yolks of Phinks' beady eyes roll at me. "Do you know who you're talking to? I have perfect control."

"Though you often overestimate how much power to use," says Feitan.

He glowers at traitorous Feitan. "I'm not reckless though. Unlike _someone_."

The hairs on the back of my neck tingle. The asshole who just sent a tornado towards some live landmines is calling me reckless.

Don't do it. Don't take the bait, Safra. "And what's _that_ supposed to mean?" Like a dumb fish I bite the bait, hook my lip and Phinks reels me in with gusto like he had been begging for this moment all damn day.

"Easy. The difference between you and me is that I know what I'm doing."

"Saying I'm an unskilled Nen user is unoriginal."

The crows cawed wildly, clamoring with our clanging words.

"I repeat, I _know_ as in I'm aware of what my Nen is doing. Do you know the cost of your escape?"

"I was trapped in a cave and did what I had to do to get out. I paid the price."

"Only you paid the price? Meteor City is cracking at the seams because of you."

I've stopped listening. Pieces in my head that showed no connection now snap together like magnets. The nonchalant mention of the early tremors from Shalnark and Franklin, the _ugly cracks will begin to show_ message from Machi and the scaffolding mending new damage throughout the city. That was all me and that is just the sun-washed tip of the iceberg of what my Nen can do. And these powerful Nen users are harping at me because the city that is closer than family to them is also paying the price for my telling them to sod off.

My pride cries, but inside I admit that despite swearing I never would, I finally see eye-to-eye with them on something.

I unveil my face and freely inhale the air that without my knowing has taken a biting chill.

"You _caved_ into your whims," says Feitan, serving up another dish of his depraved humor. "Found yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place. If you had listened to us in the first place, you wouldn't have needed to pay for anything."

I open my mouth, ready to defend myself, that they would have done what I did, but somehow the part of me that should have spoken up earlier finally prevails.

"You're...right," I say, my facial muscles straining so hard I have to force the words out. My pride roars like a wildebeest. I turn my head away and wring its neck.

Mental skid marks as they hit the breaks in whatever rehearsed lines they were ready to spew. For the second time that day, they watch me with mute curiosity.

"You two were right. I should have heeded your warnings before dashing off by myself. You were adamant that you hadn't killed Fazier and yet I called you both liars. That was wrong of me. I'm sorry, Phinks, Feitan."

My apology comes out stilted because I barely remember school keigo, and sincerity is harder in a second language, but I hope I expressed my point.

With that, they extinguish, their excitement for more punny arguments an exposed a flame in strong winds.

The sun is still up but it's reaching for the horizon now and a real chill swims through my clothes.

"Sah, time for a breather" sighs Feitan. "I want to see what Franklin packed us."

"The landmines?" I ask.

"They're not going anywhere," says Phinks. "And as long as Danchou isn't back, neither are we."

Feitan opens the bag only enough to fit the span of his curious face and he searches greedily inside. "You can get the rest after we rest."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dare I say it but has Safra begun to come 'round to Feitan and Phinks? Yep, that was a rendition of Ripper Cyclotron and yep he did whip it out to clear some sand...but hey now the job will get done faster. I also LOVE his Pharaoh nemes and couldn't resist making him wear it in this chapter. He comes across to me a little on the vain side with his love for decor and gucci tracksuits. Also unable to resist, though Feitan isn't a native Japanese (Standard?) speaker, I like the idea of him enjoying some inappropriate word-play. Poor Safra is both amused and undermined by his depraved sense of humor.


	17. Count to 7

Today, I learned Feitan is a portable heater.

"Black, peppermint, oolong, green, or rosehip tea?" asks Feitan in punctuated Chinese.

Chinese and Gortese are said to be as close as lips to teeth. But I've never had the chance to test that out before.

"Bl _aack tea_?" I say in inflated Gortese and Feitan nods.

He positions the kettle on his Nen-steaming palm. Water bubbles in the vessel. Vapor coils afloat in the murmuring desert air when Feitan pours into three mugs.

Franklin was smart to throw in some tea packets. One desert reality I'm not used to: teeth-chatteringly cold nights. The temperature doesn't dive like this in the muggy jungle.

Feitan folds his collar to eat and unveils the ageless bone-pale face from Pakunoda's memory bomb. Still devilishly handsome, but the innate teenage glow is dead gone. Gortese girls _would go red bananas_ over him. He's familiar as an Azian but foreign enough to tantalize their intrigue of the unknown. His hair had been as silky smooth as mine back then, and now his tresses are wild waves as if the crazy had electrified his hair-roots.

Feitan's Japanese is grey blasé with lifeless monotone. But his Chinese…he sings his Chinese. His voice rides the tonal gales.

Between hot sips of tea, I throw random Gortese words Feitan's way, testing the mutual intelligibility of our languages. The grammar is backward, but Gortese vocabulary is vestiges of literary Chinese locked away in a high tower guarded by a ferocious dragon.

"It's like talking to a fossil," says Feitan.

I glare at him and gesture with my mug like I'm going to spray him with hot tea (like it would do him any harm...might even excite that sadist) "You mean _tropical._ Gortese is tropical."

"I'm talking to a tropical fossil."

I scold him in spit-fire Gortese, the Gortese linguistic equivalent of slapping someone's cheek and leaving behind a red-hot handprint. Instead of backlash, I hear a charmed croak from his smirking eyes.

Phinks clears his throat, his jowls shadowed lines, the dour face of relegated the third wheel.

"Can you believe I tried to teach this one some Chinese?" says Feitan. "He _begged and begged._ "

"How did it go?"

Feitan actually _shudders_ and I crack a smile.

"You two better not be talking smack about me," warns Phinks.

We eat sandwiches and drink our tea.

My stomach protests but I leave the food Franklin packed for me precisely half eaten. I return to work and clear out the rest of the landmines without fuss.

"Are you sure it's clear?" asks Phinks when I set the full sack at their feet.

"I can zig-zag through the expanse as a demonstration if you would like?"

"If she's done that still means waiting for Danchou," says Feitan. "Both of us don't have to stay."

"You're right, Fei," says Phinks placing an all too firm hand on his shoulder. "You stay and I'll leave."

Feitan swats his unwelcome arm like a mosquito but I feel the tremendous power richoket through Phinks' arm. " _You_ stay. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have lost the bet."

I perk up. "What was that?"

 _Don_ _'t you dare_ radiates off Phinks' murderous glare, but Feitan egged on, spoke in mock shock. "Oh, I'm not supposed to tell her am I?"

"Tell me what?"

"Shove it Fei," says Phinks. "We'll decide by coin." He fishes through his pockets and produces an arbiter: a burnished yellow coin, like an arcade token. Tails to Feitan and Heads to Phinks. With a flick of his thumb, the coin scores up the indigo sky.

The coin almost clips my nose , nearly rendering me like the nose-less Egyptian pyramids. I jump back and with lucky reflexes manage to slap it between my palms. I turn the coin over and orange sunlight flashes over the winning side. "Erm, spider web?"

Phinks drags his claw down his miserable face while Feitan is already reaching for the sack of landmines, his ticket to leave.

"You try anything funny I _will_ kill you," says Phinks, pointing an accusing finger between my crossed eyes.

"Pft," croaks Feitan. "His death threat is as empty as the space between his ears. He knows the rules, but he's puffing his chest because he _knows_ you can _disarm_ him."

I chew my bottom lip to curtail it from curling. I snipe a glance at my Nen coiled around Phinks' wrist. Though I'm sure he can't understand us, Phinks tucks his cuffed wrist under his other arm, hard against his armpit.

Feitan, his shadow, footprints and all, disappears in the orange light. "What was Feitan talking about?" I ask.

"Don't worry about it," says Phinks.

"Are you keeping something from me?"

"Fei suggested that to rattle your cage."

Phinks shoos me away and sits cross-legged in the sand, jaw set wired-tight.

I sit too, two arm-lengths away. "I know Danchou said he'd return at nightfall but what time do you think he'll arrive?"

"If Danchou says he'll be here at nightfall, it means he'll _be here at nightfall._ "

"Can we run another errand? I wanna be productive. Do you know how many landmines are left in Meteor City? Hundreds!"

My energy is not infectious, evident by how he drags up one hairless brow. "Did Feitan spike your tea? Or is this one of the side-effects of Shal's meds?"

"What's a side-effect?"

"Your words are crashing into each other like you're hyped on caffeine."

"I'm just focused. Do you think we'll have enough time to go fetch another mine before he gets back? There is a landmine stuck under some cemented cinder blocks. I can't reach it by myself."

"You want to drag me to the other side of the city _now_?" he says. "We're not going anywhere so park it and shut up."

"Why did I bother asking you for help," I groan, twisting away from his rigid frown.

"We wouldn't make it back before Danchou returns," Phinks says after much delay as if he couldn't leash his words anymore. " _And_ it's going to rain."

This rain-business again. I extend my arms out at the imaginary rain, begging under the star-blanketed sky. "Where I come from, rain is precipitation from clouds. The sky is so clear I can circle the other eight planets in our solar system."

"Eight?" says Phinks. "Didn't East Gorteau get the memo? Pluto isn't a planet anymore."

"Now I know you're trying to mess with me," I say, with forced haughtiness. Maybe Shalnark can help me look it up later (if he doesn't laugh at me again). If _that_ isn't true then what else from my school days isn't true? What of my education has become obsolete and what was a flat-out lie?

I pondered this depressing question when I maneuvered over the barbed fence into Zeoul. We were taught the West was starving too. Then I learned they eat white gold, or rice every day. That they were one of the richest countries in Azia. In the world. I remember finding a bowl of rice with chicken bits in the middle of an immaculate lawn. I wondered, dumb-struck why someone would leave still-steaming _white gold_ in the grass but reality hit me when I heard the barking dogs.

They worked us like dogs in East Gorteau and dogs in West Gorteau ate better than us.

I hold my whirling head in my hands. I'm thinking way too fast.

 _Mien_ massages my weary mind from days of non-stop over-stimulation. It eases the knots, irons out the crimps, like a personal masseuse who knows the precise pressure points. Still, it doesn't feel like enough these days.

"How do you do that?" asks Phinks.

"Are you acknowledging that I know something and you don't?"

He shrugs. "I still think it's a made-up Nen concept."

We're eclipsed by silence and time crawls at a tectonic pace. The bored air misses the tonal twirls of Feitan's Chinese.

I dry-swallow another one of Shalnark's horse pills.

 _Is this poisoning contagious?_ I hear Phinks stupid-furrowed face echo on my conscience.

With more energy than activity to spend it, I dig up scrap sagebrush. Phinks' cyclone of doom had exfoliated the landscape and now the area is riddled with scrap that must have migrated from the dunes.

I douse the bark-bare tip with my explosive Nen and I brainstorm. My Nen fires like a bullet but I want it to return to me like a boomerang.

It seems to go well—until it doesn't.

I chuck the scrap away from my precious fingers and _bomph_ , desert confetti sprinkling the land.

"What the hell are you doing?" asks Phinks, in a whipping tone that sent a jolt through my shoulder blades.

"Nothing."

"Fine, blow off a finger or two. The way you're trying to reclaim your Nen is _never_ going to work."

Was he watching me? My curiosity gnaws until I finally rotate my whole body around to face Bored-Pharaoh. "What am I doing wrong?"

"I'm not a Transmuter, says Phinks, a mandatory disclaimer. "What I can tell you is that you've mastered disarming landmines with your Nen and you're not applying similar conditions when reclaiming your Nen."

"Reclaim it by disarming it?"

I claw at the sand for more sagebrush. I imagine I'm dealing with a landmine, enacting the same condition, _wallahae,_ I murmur and disarm it.

I'll be damned. That worked. The Nen slithers back into my confident palm. I try it again, but in my excitement, I miss a crucial step and have to pitch the stick into the open distance. The scrap splinters before splitting into debris like dusty bones.

Disappointment flashes on Phinks but then rationalization, _of course, she'd find some way to screw it up._

"Grimace at me all you want. I don't bear an ounce of guilt," I say despite the guilty sour dregs in my stomach. "Because I was only defending myself. That bangle is your fault."

"Pft! If my reflexes were half as slow as yours, my hand would be deader than dust. You were fighting my grasp. It was your fault if I was a _little_ rough with you."

A little rough?! "Of course I was fighting, you were about to make bone soup out of my hand!"

A grizzly exasperated groan that reverberates in his ribcage. "You're lucky I didn't break your neck in one satisfying swipe." I can tell Phinks has a penchant for Egyptian motifs, but mauling bear suits him more than a hissing serpent. "I'm warning you, keep pestering me and I _will_ kill you—"

"Feitan told me to not take your death threats seriously." With a weave of words, I parry the bear's mauling paws.

With the blue night casting coolly against his complexion, I can see the girlish pink sunburn rimming his cheeks like a blush.

"I'm going to ask Feitan what he meant."

" _Pft._ Be my guest."

"Or you could set the record straight right now?"

"Nice try. You're not getting _jack_ from me."

I underestimated him. Not so much plain space between his ears.

So I'll try and piece everything together. What do I know? They were looking for me. They were obviously at a crossroads and the decision made Feitan sour. Maybe they gave up? No way, they're too stubborn for that. Maybe Phinks led them down the wrong way? But that's not something worth hiding from me. What else could bother me unless they knew where I was trapped—

"You!"

Phinks starts, caught off guard and I can't savor his stunned mouth-falling open confoundment because I'm too busying exclaiming.

"You dirty son of a—" My curse bursts into scalding Gortese. "You lost the bet on purpose. To leave me down there. You were trying to get rid of me."

The sheer offense that disfigures his expression—like I've wronged him, defamed, besmirched him—forces me to doubt myself.

"No one— _I_ was _not_ trying to get rid of you," he says.

"So you _did_ know where I was?!"

"We _knew_ but we weren't trying to get rid of you or leave you to die down there. Get that straight."

"Go on," I say.

"One of Fisherman's soldiers—the one Feitan tortured—squealed like a pig. Feitan wanted to get it over with and get you, but I made the call to leave you there," says Phinks. "If I believed you were in mortal danger I would have dragged you out of Fisherman's cave by the scruff of your neck."

"Why leave me? You were already looking for me."

"Again, I didn't think you were in real danger. With how annoying you can be I suspected they would rather cut their losses and let you go free—"

"Phinks!" Each explanation is worse than trying to yank out a molar.

"From me, you escaped twice in one piece. So I knew you'd be fine," says Phinks. "That's what you wanted to hear and it's the truth. _Now shut up._ "

I believe Machi would label this a 'covert compliment.'

"Give me your wrist," I say.

He glares at my naked palm as if it were salved with poison.

"Why in the world would I do that—"

"I'm taking off the bangle."

His turn now to waggle why.

"I'm tired of you holding that bomb over my head _so let me take it off,_ " I say. "You know what it looks like when I disarm a landmine and as you just gloated, you know I'm not fast enough to blow off your limbs before you kill me."

I flash my open hand forcefully.

"What do you take me for? After what I told you, you think I would trust you to _not_ retaliate?"

I set my jaw, tasting the gritty bits of sand between my teeth. "Why did I even bother?"

* * *

Meteor City expands so far and wide the sky is in two poles: dipping orange in the West and ribbons of celestial indigo in the East.

Waiting for Danchou and the others is like watching potted water come to boil. For ages I stare into the horizon, nothing, then when I briefly glance away, at a cawing crow, at the charming twinkle of stars, and suddenly three figures emerge, seemingly conjured out of thin air.

Phinks stands, as do I.

I had been expecting a shipment of sorts, not three figures in the steady gales. Three diverse characters I can distinguish by the mere outlines of their shadows.

When I recall Uvogin, part of me thinks my unreliable memory exaggerates his size. A long as rope nope. He is a titan among men; Danchou and Omokage are doll-sized compared to him.

Speaking of dolls, seeing Omokage in the flesh makes me more anxious than I expected. Yet my worries are for naught. He acknowledges me first with a lip-ring _tink!_ smirk I know is all for me.

Danchou lowers his lion's mane hood and bats his long lashes as he comes to a rest in front of Phinks and me.

Feeling absolutely bedraggled for the occasion, I lower my scarf and am greeted by _charred remains of sagebrush_ rather than the fetor of the garbage dunes.

"It's all clear, Danchou," says Phinks and I can't help but feel snubbed of my chance to claim credit for my labor."

His ghost eyes peer down into my ghost eyes. The good news provokes a subtle change in his features, a certain peaceful sea waving through him from under his heart. For all the quiet times I've noted his looks, Chrollo reveals a special handsomeness when he smiles.

"It _feels_ clear. Like a change in the season, I feel it in my bones," says Danchou, jostling his shoulders. "Fazier and Fisherman were right." He leaves the rest implied and my brushwood imagination burns wild. "Thank you, Safra." Indulge me this, but under the gaze of his dreamy eyes, I'm aglow like I'm Helen of Troy.

If Danchou has the sense to be subtle, Uvogin is a boulder shattering a tranquil water pond. He sneers at Phinks. "Oooh? So you lost the bet so newbie made it back all by herself?"

Phinks crosses his arms but doesn't bite the bait.

Uvogin raises his tree trunk of an arm and his anvil-hand cups my crown. I actually sink into the sand under his weighted affectionate gesture. Why are all the giant dudes of the Troupe using me as an armrest?

"Well done, newbie," says Uvogin.

He presses even more weight and my ankles are swallowed by sand. I grab onto his hirsute wrist, partially worried I'd drown lest I hang on.

"Thank you, Uvogin."

Now please stop crushing me.

When he does lift his hand, I feel like my joints and cartilage are smooshed and I'm at least two inches tinier.

"Can I see a landmine?!" Asking isn't what Uvo does, he bombards me. He's a steroid-fed mastiff who thinks he's a dachshund puppy, and he wants to jump into my lap. "I wanna see one!"

At first, I want to say heck no, but I remember the landmine I have yet to reach.

"I could actually use your help Uvo..." I say and peer over to Danchou. "There's a landmine under a heavy cinder block and I can't reach it by myself—"

"Heavy you say?" says Uvogin, his hairy navel heaving with chuckles if he found my saying 'heavy' to be cute. He flexes his Herculean muscles, lines of definition deep as trenches.

Ok. We get it, Uvo. That cinderblock is gonna be toast.

"Say the word, Danchou, we can go get it?" asks Uvogin in a manner resembling a giddy child.

"I'll yield that decision to Safra. I trust her judgment."

A mere few words from his mouth, poetry to my ears. The most non-covert compliment from the Troupe that doesn't feel back-handed.

"Let's go Uvogin," I say.

Uvogin bares a gleaming grin.

"Hold on a second."

And of course, Phinks has to wrench himself between the gears.

"What are your protests, Phinks?" asks Danchou.

"They're live explosives, not chew toys," he says to Uvo.

Says the dude with the weird hat who threw a dust devil at some landmines.

"If you're worried, then go with them," says Omokage.

"Return after you disarm the landmine," says Danchou. "I want to gather everyone to begin discussing the heist."

 _The_ heist? I almost want to tell Uvogin to take a rain-check, but he's already beelining for the dunes, as unstoppable as the tide.

* * *

I turn around, addressing the thousand-dagger stare stabbing the back of my scarfed head. " _What_ Phinks?"

"You could have asked me you know," he says.

"I _did_ ask you," I say.

"And I told you that we would get it later."

"That's _not_ what you said. You said: park it and shut up."

"And I meant, shut up now and we'll get it later, but first priority is Danchou."

"Amazing," I say. "How eloquent you're able to use your words when you're faced with not getting what you want."

"I'm serious," says Phinks, veins pulsing in his jaw. "Uvogin thinks your explosives are a game."

"Do you of all people have any ground to stand upon and preach after the stunt you pulled earlier?"

"This is different."

"Is it? Or are you annoyed I bypassed you and got help from someone else?"

"If you thought I was reckless earlier you haven't seen anything yet."

"Settle it with Uvogin then. How about you flip a coin?" I swivel away before the bearish growl.

I follow behind Uvogin even though I'm the one who knows the location.

Uvogin takes up an unfair amount of space and swerving around him is like trying to peer around a mountain when trying to double-check your path.

I pass by it three times before recognizing the cement block that won against my pitiful non-Herculean attempts to shift it. I press my ear so the mottled stone and hear the same echoing buzz of a hidden landmine. "This is it…I think."

"Ho? This fingernail of a thing?"

He really does lift it with one fingertip. Sand gushes out, but there it is: the landmine exposed like a beetle creeping under a rock.

"Oh?! That's a landmine?" asks Uvogin.

"This is one but…" I say running my hand around the tall oval casing.

"But _what_?" groans Phinks with very tightly crossed arms.

"This shape is strange and the sound is strange."

A glimmer catches my eye.

"Uvo, do you mind lifting it a tad?"

"I can do _more_ than a tad. I can juggle it, the landmine too."

My mouth dries but before an adamant protest can gell, Phinks beats me to it.

"If she says a tad than no more than a tad," says Phinks.

"I don't take orders from you."

My breath blows sand into smoke near my face, reminding me of mustard gas in the camp. Please don't do this when I'm trying to disarm a live explosive.

They bicker and I try to ignore them, tunneling my senses to the task at my hand. _Why is that buzz so weird_ _—like it_ _'s doubled_.

Another glimmer and I spot two copper lines crisscrossing like veins in the sand. One copper line is snagged on a broken tip of the cinderblock in Uvogin's grasp. One flex and the trip wire pulls.

This landmine has a twin out there somewhere.

I try to speak, warn them, urge them to _not move a muscle_ , but my words slurp nosily between my quivering lips.

Even in the midst of their verbal quarrel they're so tuned to disruptions in the situation, they freeze at my hitched breath and terror-bleached white eyes.

Uvogin had been in the midst of moving and the synapses firing in his brain hadn't reached his bending elbows. I watch it happen in slow motion, my brain processing each frame, but my body seizes, my limbs a million pounds each, and I can't stop it. The cinderblock lifts, pulling the trip wire until it scrapes off the block and strums like a guitar string.

The steady whistle drones for the fateful one-tenth of a second. Enough time for my breath to get stuck in my chest and my heart to go dead cold.

_Bomph!_

...

Someone's strong and steady heartbeat drums in my ears and hums in my head. My manic brain _should_ be panicking and yet the rhythmic _bum-dump, bum-dump_ lulls me into a stupor.

"What happened?" asks Shalnark, the calmness of his chill tone soothing.

"Call Machi," Phinks says and the torso I'm hanging off swells and compresses with the word's flow. Wait, Phinks is carrying me?

Button mashing and a faint dial tone in the background. "But what happened?"

"You know," says Phinks. "How on your fingers you can count to ten?"

"Mmhmm."

"Well now..." I feel Phinks' chesty gulp. "Safra can only count to _seven._ "

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things were going well for Safra...for all of five seconds. Am I too cruel? If there's one thing about this story, it's the Troupe has all bonded through pain. There's one crucial thing about Safra that I will fully expose in the next chapter and it's one of the things I'm most worried about writing well.
> 
> As some of you already know I cross post on fanfiction.net. Chapter 18 will mark the first divergence between the two versions with the Ao3 version featuring scenes that cannot be posted on ff.net.


	18. Didn't Phink Things Through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter deals with graphic descriptions of children being maimed, and mania. If it's not your cup of tea, I x-post on fanfiction.net and have posted a toned-down version of this chapter there. Plot-wise, there's no divergence so it doesn't matter which version you read.

"You're an idiot," says a perishingly cold voice. Machi? "You had to endanger yourself after the job was over."

Fruit-bat eyes blink at me through the phantom glares.

Light halos on Shalnark's blond head, but high above me, poised in his hand is his antenna with the sharp point ready to bulls-eye my soft flesh.

 _Oh no you don't!_  I punch it with an impressive  _pow!_  out of his grasp. Shal gapes as he watches the antenna skate across the stone floor, far from his reach  _and my arm._

"Pass-Out Princess is awake," I hear Feitan.

Instead of annoyance, Shal's laugh rings like wind chimes while he waggles his reddened hand. "And she's super cranky."

Why do I feel like a rag doll that was pulverized by a semi-truck?

"Good! You're alive!" I hear Uvogin, so giddy he could give sunny-Shal a run for his money. "I worried I had socked you too hard with my swing and snapped your spine."

I try to sit up. Uvogin has a butterfly of charred lesions spreading across the expanse of his bare back, but with his toothy grin, didn't seem to hurt more than a paper-cut to him.

"Swing?" I ask.

"You reacted too slow," says Phinks, uninjured but incised, judging by how his snaked arms are so tight I can still see their muscular definition in my swaying daze.

"Uvo swiped you out of the way before the brunt of the blast," says Shalnark. "Your ribs are fine, but pretty sore huh?"

Doesn't feel like anything is broken, just hurts like I've been working out for 16 hours.

Heck, I was right about the semi-truck. Jokes aside, that was selfless of Uvogin. In the partial second he saved my ass, he could have launched from the scene as unscathed as Phinks. "Thank you, Uvogin."

"No need for the profuse thanks," says Uvogin.

My heavy head lulls back onto the stone with a thunk.

Shal sighs. "Don't move too much. We need to stabilize the situation."

"Stabilize it already!" spits Nobunaga. "She's dripping blood all over the place!"

I do my habitual appendage-inventory. Two legs. Ten toes. Two arms—Wait. Why can't I move my right arm?

The power of sight we associate with eyes, but the brain shoulders a crucial share. My eyes see my mangled right hand, but for a long time, my brain lags, unable to connect the marrow-leaking dots with the reality I don't want to face.

My dominant hand is now a two-toed pigeon foot. My thumb and index are intact, but the rest and my palm were all obliterated. The worst part is my missing fingers itch. …Is this what phantom limbs feel like? How is this fair?

"I have to tear you away."

My chin is cupped and my view changes channels. Danchou's melancholic eyes order mine. "We can't have you panicking and going into shock."

"I'm going to stop the bleeding," says Machi. "Let's patch you up then I can start on Uvogin."

A tourniquet of neon blue compresses my wrist.

Uvogin flaps his lips like a disgruntled horse. "You think a measly explosion like that can hurt me? I'm fine!"

"You're  _not_  fine. Transfer that money into my account in the meantime. Remember, 5 million jenni and not a penny less or you're fixing your wounds yourself."

"5 million? Why aren't you charging her?"

"I am charging her," says Machi. "I'm adding it to her tab."

What tab?!

Machi unveils from a bloodied bundle, my three detached fingers. I catch myself from gasping; my hope increases tenfold.

Everything is going to be fine.

"How bad is the job?" asks Danchou.

Hesitation clouds her usual icy confidence, in a manner I've never seen on the seamstress.

"Phinks brought her fingers—or at least what's left of them," she says. "Can I save her hand? It's a gamble."

Feitan slinks over, his eyes drinking in the profuse blood. "I cauterize wound?"

"You, Feitan, are the last resort," says Machi. "Let's see if we can stitch and fix it. Too bad, I hate reattaching fingers."

"You've done harder jobs," says vehemently cheery Shalnark.

"Shalnark, if you would," says Danchou.

Shalnark flashes me his face-warping smile. "Sorry, Saf," he says, reaching from behind his back. "But this is why I carry two."

I only visually process the silver streak before an antenna stabs my left arm.

You know what? I don't even care. I appreciate the disembodied sensation and his anesthetic-Nen flooding the hollows vacated by my drained Nen.

Machi's Nen pulses against my wet wounds, to the tapered rhythm of my heartbeat, as if to say  _better brace yourself_.

"Sah, let's begin." Her dilated pupils shutter like a camera lens, capturing the state of my hand. "Nen Stitches."

I try to relax through the ordeal. Pin and needles mistress here. Machi's got this. Everything will be fine and my hand will be saved.

She abruptly stops. Her eyes glow with neon blue when she lifts her progress to scrutinize her work. She sighs. From her pincushion, she seemingly conjures a tool I have yet to see her use: a seam-ripper.

Shel hooks the threads and with a tug, her work snips. She starts over from zero.

Pins and needles dig further into my palm.

She got it this time, right?

Again with the seam-ripper, she undoes her meticulous threading.

She moves onto my ring finger, but inwardly groans at the finger missing a connective knuckle.

She closes her long-lashed lids, withdrawing into herself.

"What is it, Machi?" asks Danchou.

"There's a problem," she says, her balled hands heavy in her lap. "Her fingers are too torn and even if I can manage to bridge the broken skin, savage the muscle, the carpal bone damage is too severe for a stitch job. She needs a skin graft, new bones and my stitches can't regenerate dead tissue."

Machi gently wraps my fingers in the piece of robe they were delivered in, like a mortcloth over a still-warm corpse.

"I'm sorry, Saf," says Machi.

I…don't know what to say. My hand can't be fixed?

I should be steadfast and remember how my comrades coped with worse: lost arms, splintered up to the shoulder socket. How Huan still lived with his shattered knee and lame leg. Knowing that should ground me, but...I'm ashamed to say it doesn't. I have no freaking clue how I'm supposed to live like this—

Danchou dabs his finger at the crease of my eyes, catching tears.

"Sah," sighs Shalnark with the true blue bout of gloom that doesn't suit him. "So we'll cauterize the wound, stitch her up, gauze, maybe a bottle of strong painkillers—"

"Maaaay I intervene?" calls a silvery voice with a click of metal against bottom teeth.

Omokage glides into the hall, the panels of his overlong garment undulating in his elegance.

"Go on," says Danchou.

"If all other options are eliminated," he says, undoing a breast button. "Might I suggest this?" From the shadow of his coat, he produces a wire armature masked with skin. "If you can't save her hand, I can make her one instead."

"You mean," asks Franklin. "Like one of your dolls?"

"I am an immaculate craftsman," says Omokage. "I carve puppets indistinguishable from human beings."

Strange revulsion ripples through me when he flexes the fingers of his armature for show.

"It's wire construction, but I will make it compatible with your body and your Nen. Mark my words, it will be better than your natural hand ever was."

" _Better than your natural hand_ ," says Nobunaga. "You think you're a god?"

"Go ahead," says Omokage. "Touch it."

Nobunaga munches his lips as he pinches the fabric skin tentatively. "I'll give you that. It feels damn real."

"This hand won't fit her without augmentations. It's too big, but like fabric: it's easier to take away than to add on."

A huff from Machi.

"How long would it take to shape it?" asks Pakunoda.

"No time at all."

"Why not a prosthetic?" asks Phinks.

"What Omokage is proposing sounds better than a prosthetic," says Shalnark.

"But a fake doll-hand hand attached to her body?" says Phinks. "Sounds fishy."

"What's fishy about it?" says Omokage. "It would be better than before she lost her hand. And she cannot continue disarming mines as she is now."

"Nor could she participate in Danchou's heist," says Feitan.

The air chills when Machi glares at Feitan. "What are the risks?"

"No risk," he says. "The armature adapts to her natural body. Think a prosthetic as Phinks said, but enlivened with my Nen until it acclimates with hers. Lucky for her, I have long perfected the practice."

Omokage stands so tall over me and his infectious excitement surprisingly urges me to consider it, but this is very fast.

"You're a very gifted craftsman Omokage," says Danchou and the puppeteer's spirits seem to rise like hot air. "But perhaps Safra needs some time to think about it."

Danchou is giving me a bone here,  _take it and give yourself time to calm down and think carefully about the ramifications of this favor._

"Is now the best time to do it?" I ask.

"I can perform the procedure anytime between now or ten years from now," says Omokage. "It whittles down to your pain tolerance and your nerve. If we wait until you're healed, you would have to rip open your hand again."

"What happens if it breaks?"

"I fix it, but I assure you, this armature can endure a fair amount of abuse. Immeasurably more than frangible human bones."

The decision-making brain cortex is an outta control car on a hydroplaning on the highway.

Shalnark tends to a beeping phone alert.

"I want to do it now," I say.

"Safra." Pakunoda's flats clack against the stone in her confident stride. "Do you think you're in the right state of mind for such a crucial decision?"

Shalnark scrolls up his phone screen. "Heh, says serotonin levels are shooting through the roof."

I spot the beginning of a question on Danchou's full lips when for the first time, I interrupt him.

"Do I have a choice?" I ask.

Omokage tuts. The willowy man kneels, sweeping his glossy hair over his padded shoulders. I squeak when he cups my face, beckoning me tenderly to listen and see no more than his beautifully sculpted face and sea-glass blue eyes.

"I cannot force you to do anything. Even with my skill, your body could reject the armature if it feels forced upon you."

He shows me the armature up close. Like Nobunaga, I pinch it and to my astonishment, the palm compresses like a firm pillow, the right amount of rigidity and squish to pass as a human hand.

A perfectly sculpted hand, not unlike the marble statues around the cathedral.

But can a replica ever look  _too human_  that it's unsettling? Uncanny valley galore?

A large human hand soon to be mine, yet it had none of my deep-set knuckle wrinkles, no yellow undertone, no bitten nails, no scar shaped like "Jupiter's Red-Spot" on my thumb from an oven accident.

"So what's your decision?" asks Omokage. He is so close I can see the blur of my dark hair and skin color in his lip-ring.

"He's making it sound inevitable," says Machi. "But, Safra, it's not your only option."

"You mean have a lame hand? How am I supposed to disarm landmines?" The heist?

"It would take major adjustment, but nothing you can't handle. What's the hurry?" says Machi before turning. "What's  _your_ hurry, Omokage?"

"One more thing," I say as Omokage stands to his full height then peers over me from above all too familiar from when we were in the cave. "What's your price?"

"Hooo? A rude question for someone offering to remake your hand," he says.

"I'm not dumb enough to think you're doing this for charity," I say. "Name your price."

"No price," he says, laughing through his nose. "My single trifle compensation will be having another immaculate addition to my collection."

How easily Omokage left me underground and how he now swoons over to help.

"Fine," I say, like I'm chewing on a bitter root.

"Safra," says Machi, her voice almost pleads and my heart rots when I ignore her.

"Do it. Before I change my mind."

Omokage bares his teeth, a crazed expression I would never mistake for a smile. "I am a  _Divine_ Puppeteer. I promise you'll be so taken with it, you'll want your  _entire_  body replaced."

* * *

Light pours through the webbing of my raised fingers. My adopted hand as Omokage so affectionately named it. One thing I'll give Omokage, he loves his craft.

("So many artists and puppeteers despise hands. I love them! They're so expressive.")

"You're going to experience  _growing pains_. The adjustment period. You won't feel it for another few hours."

"That's enough time," I say sitting up a little too fast.

"Enough time for  _what_?" asks Machi.

"Enough time for me to go back out there."

Machi stares at me with frigidity that should scare me, her gloves creaking from their balling into fists. "You are an idiot."

"Already dying to take the new hand out for a spin," says Nobunaga.

"I enjoy Impulsive-Safra," says Feitan.

"It was that same impulsivity that got her hand blown off," says Machi,  _don't encourage her_  committed on them.

"Before you go," says Paku. "I want to check for myself what happened." She outstretches her hand open at me, the gesture explicit of her intent.

I let her touch her manicured hand to my forearm. Don't think I don't know what you're trying to do Paku.

She ignores that thought and my sparse memories trickle from the beckoning curls of purple Nen.

"It was Phinks' fault," says Paku.

The words club Phinks on the head, judging by his gruff grunt. " _My_ fault?!"

"According to her memories," says Pakunoda. "You bickering with Uvo made him mishandle the landmine, which ultimately led to its detonation."

"Who invited him in the first place?" barks Phinks. "Who insisted on showing him a landmine?"

"Calm down," says Pakunoda. "Memories are biased. She recalls you as the aggravator.

He points a finger to his barrel chest. "Me? The aggravator?! It's not even Uvo's fault, it's  _her_ fault. She froze and didn't fulfill one of her ability's conditions."

If I could roll my eyes I would, but even that motion hurts. "What condition?"

"Every time you've disarmed a landmine, you say  _vallahi_ or whatever. It's a condition of your ability.

Pish-posh. I don't say wallahae  _every time_ or…do I?

Do I have to thank him now for helping me figure that out? Besides that, I know Paku was trying to distract me. "I'm leaving."

My robes are dripping maroon. Right. Just because they fixed my mind doesn't I'm not still  _loopy_  from blood loss.

"There's no shame in calling it a day, Safra," says Danchou.

"I  _have_  to get it," I say. Don't make me say it.

"Why can't it wait?"

Shalnark had plucked his antenna after Omokage finished and now their voices are nails scraping a chalkboard and it's making my skin crawl, get it off me.

I have to get out of here I have to get that landmine. "All I know is that it has a twin and…it might be a shrapnel bomb."

" _You_  never mentioned shrapnel," says Phinks.

"There was none during the explosion," says Uvogin.

So many points I must explain in orderly detail, but it's all too. Damn. Fast. "Trust me. You can tell by its shape, which was an oval and it was weird."

"You're not making a lot of sense," says Phinks.

"I have to get it," I say with gusto as if my life depends on it. "If it's shrapnel it can't stay out there."

No one moves as Danchou deliberates for a moment. I can sense him about to say no when Phinks interrupts.

"I can go with her, Danchou."

He's the last person I would expect to ask and the last person I want going with me, but he lends me some crucial credibility.

"Return before it rains," says Danchou.

"Fine," says Machi, throwing her hands up in abandon. "If you blow off another hand, find another seamstress to fix it."

I hold up my scarf with my left hand, lacking the dexterity and the simple will to tie it up.

The sun has since fallen below the horizon and to my utter surprise, the stars are gone but in their place is a rumbling sky with the promise of a thunderstorm.

I'll be damned. Phinks was right...again.

I don't know if he has eyes like a cat, but he finds the detonation site. I hear the whistle and catch his wrist before I think twice. His breath hitches and I yank my hand away, not meaning to freak him out. "Sorry—was gonna tell you to wait a second."

The apartment lights from Meteor City spare us some visibility, but not much.

"How do you know this so-called twin didn't blow too?"

"We'd be dead if it did."

We follow the trip wire and find the twin not even three meters from the detonation site.

I rub my 'adopted hand' along its metal oval frame, the sensation slightly dull compared to my regular sense of touch.

"This isn't shaped at all like the other ones," says Phinks."

"It's a shrapnel bomb." The same kind that shattered Huan's knee. "Imagine an explosion and fifty Pakunodas firing bullets in every direction." I swallow bile. My neck is clammy and the humid air is so thick it's laborious to breathe.

"Are you ok?"

"I will be after I disarm this landmine."

Out of caution, I use my left hand as much as possible, which works to my benefit as it forces me to slow the process. I mutter wallahae.

As Omokage said, when I do engage Nen in my 'adopted hand' it takes to it as naturally as a duck to water. More like a super duck to water with hyper buoyancy.

Once the fuse is popped out and the TNT block is removed, I break open the frame and out pours little metal balls,  _bom_ _…bom.._ like marbles in the sand.

Saf, I hear.

I peer up at Phinks who shrugs his shoulders. "What? I didn't say anything."

Saaaaaaf, I hear again, behind me.

Roasted malt eyes catch mine. Huan skips over on two perfect legs and then bends over to pack as many plums he can with his clumsy arms.  _Bom_ _…bom…_ they tumble out faster than he can catch them.

Light drowns the scene and I'm not where I should be.

* * *

Blues, a fruit of the plum variety native to East Gorteau, known for its juicy, firm blue flesh. A blue when eating begins as a lemon that ends as a grape.

Huan and I get up before dawn every spring and wander into the hills to eat. Amari would stand in line all day awaiting rations if there were any that day. Of course, we'd save plenty for her after getting our fill.

A blue being chewed in each cheek, we'd use our overlong shirts as pouches to fill as much as we could.

That too warm day the blues were especially sour. My cheeks puckered from the tart burn.

I climbed up the branches of one particular tree, while Huan sat on the ground, spitting a pit.

"More incoming!" I hugged the branch and shook it.

Blues hailed from the sky, the bounty bouncing down the hill.

Call it clairvoyance, call it the devil giving me ten lifetimes of nightmare fuel, and I never told a soul, but I saw the very blue that tumbled over the shrapnel bomb.

A pop! then shrapnel rained in the same way the blues had, the sound of gunfire piercing bark and a bone-shattering scream.

Certain events in your life never leave you be. Leeching somewhere often dormant at all times in the back of your mind and in your heart and for me, it's Huan crying my name after the splatter of his bones. It finds me at the pinnacle of sleep, in my nightmares, when my mind wanders, when I laugh really hard at a joke and laughter sounds like crying, when my ears ring and somewhere in the high pitch buzz comes Huan's blood-curdling wails.

I split apart. Everything about me as a conscionable human being was ripped from me like hair from a scalp.  
  
I sprained my ankle jumping out of the tree and the impact drilled all the way up to my neck. Looking back, I could have triggered another mine.

Weeks prior I had pushed Huan off me when he slammed me into a hug, "you're too heavy!" Running as fast as I could, carrying him then reminded me of carrying him as a fragile newborn baby.

My inability to trigger a response from the nurse infuriated me. Their jobs had made them numb. I had always been a civilized person, but remarkably, I shed that onion skin as soon as the bomb blast. I scorned the nurses, my throat torn raw from yelling obscenities, death threats, curses I hope my mother in the afterlife did not hear. "He needs to be stabilized. For the love of God, get him on painkillers. He needs a bed. He needs a bed. FIND ONE. WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING THERE YOU MEWLING FUCKS?!"

They used a magnet to pry the shrapnel from his knee. It took an hour because it had clipped bone, shredded cartilage, and muscle. He had passed out from the pain. One of the nurses had passed out from his incessant screams.

I didn't feel alive. I didn't feel human anymore. My humanity was stretched to its absolute limits and at one point it snapped like rubber pulled to the density of film.

Everything I believed outside my capacity, too horrible, I could do without compassion. I became a monster.

I berated a nurse until she shook, crying, because I wanted someone else to be in pain. I threatened to throw a toothless, bedridden man off his mattress just to get a bed for Huan. A pregnant woman had to start her contractions on the waiting benches because I wouldn't relent on Huan getting medical attention first. I was ready to kill her, her baby, burn down the hospital and kill everyone in that god-forsaken hospital, our city, all of East Gorteau if no one stopped me. If the country allowed its children to be maimed by mines they themselves put there to stop them from eating, no one, not them, not their innocent families, no one deserved to live.

Fuck everything. Burn everything to the worthless ash that it is.

Why are there landmines? Why are there landmines in a blue plum orchard? They know children pick there because there is no, fucking, food, to, eat. Why did they put them there? Why Huan and not someone else? Why not me instead?

Gout, a leathery winged demon, sank its claws in me and cackled at my misery with every one of its malevolent muscles.

...

Quiet eclipsed the terror as Huan rested and the nurses left, relieved I wasn't screaming.

I stir, hung-over from my rampage. Huan's chest swells and shrinks under my arm steadily. The scent of lavender had awakened me. Amari slept on the other side of Huan, harsh stress lines etched into her forehead and jowls even as she slept. Her arm rested over him, lightly touching mine.

I'm reminded of when Huan was only one and we all slept in the same bed. We both kept a hand on either his arm or foot to keep the restless toddler from kicking us and trying to roll off the bed in the middle of the night.

...

"We need to talk about your manic break, Safra," said Amari days after.

There were times I'd swear Ma was possessed by a demon. Mother had manic breaks, I didn't. I reacted to a terrifying and traumatic experience. Anyone would have gone manic.

"You know I'm right," she said in a honey-sweet voice that's impossible to argue with.

Shut up! I don't have what Ma had. Stop it! Please!

Could it be that Ma infected me with it? Because I was the only one who stayed up late with her? Suddenly I wasn't a rambunctious kid, but those happy times were fits of mania.

...

Huan gave me a plum-stuffed smile, his grin missing baby teeth and handed me another blue to eat.

Huan had endured shrapnel in his leg, probably wouldn't ever walk again, couldn't ever run with me, climb trees ever again.

And he took pity on me.

* * *

"Newbie? Newwwwb?" My shoulder is jostled. "Safra?"

Phinks blows a tsunami of menthol cigarette smoke right in my face. The odor isn't unpleasant but is so intense my smothered senses scream MINT and ICE COLD. Menthol tickles my windpipe, causing me to wheeze.

"Wha—th—?"

"I know, I  _know_ ," says Phinks. "Peppermint oil is better, but I'm fresh out of that."

"Phi—?"

"I hear being splashed with ice-cold water works too. But as you can tell, I don't carry my water jug in  _these_  robes." Cigarette smoke curls as he pats his robes to dramatically demonstrate the utter lack of room.

"Phinks—you trying to choke me?"

"Choke you?" Phinks sounds taken aback before he haughtily twists away, his nose high. "You're lucky I so happened to have that mint flavor on me. High tar regular reds would have stung like a bee—"

"Are you being a smart ass right now?"

Now he looks outright offended, the furrowed brow lines almost reaching his hairline. "You know, Machi says you're smart, but you're kinda dumb—"

"Phinks!"

A grumble that doubles as a sigh. "You know how smelling salts can revive a person after they pass out? Instead of ammonia, all I had was mint." He takes a weary drag from his cigarette.

My anger dissipates. The hallucination had pulled me into its drowning depths. And Phinks threw me a rope to grab hold.

"I'm sorry Phinks." How did it come to be that I would apologize to Phinks twice in one day? "Thank you for snapping me out of it. That was some fast thinking on your part."

"Pft, don't patronize me. Any fool worth their salt would have figured that out."

I sigh. Fine Phinks. Whatever. Do Enhancers hate being thanked or what?

I spread my fingers out towards his cigarette. "May I?"

Reluctance in his narrowed eyes before he passes over the smoke.

I've seen hundreds of people do this yet I almost drop it. Am I supposed to hold it like a pencil or what? I hold the filter between my lips like a straw and inhale, watching the rosy ring drag back, sizzling the tobacco.

The burn, instant, painful and poisonous, swarms my throat and I gag like a high-speed train hit me in the gut. Phinks snatches it away.

Nope. Nope. Definitely don't like that.

"Another?" he jokes.

"Hell no. Never again."

"Good. Don't start. Machi would kill me if you started."

"How can you enjoy that? It's breathing in hot ash. I smell ash in my hair."

"You're not  _supposed_  to enjoy it."

As if that makes any sense.

He takes another drag, not coughing, like a pro. I notice tension in his brows. Then with a gruff, defeated sigh _, damn it, I'm going to regret this_ , he folds up his robe sleeve and then outstretches his arm, exposing his bangled wrist.

"Here," he says.

It takes me a slow second to realize what 'here' means.

"Are you sure you want me to try taking off your cuff? I ask. "You know what could happen."

The silver clouds sparking with lightning reflects in the sweat on his forehead.

"Just do it before I change my mind, okay?" he says.

I tremble, but my unease settles the moment I hold his wrist. Wallahae, I say. I picture a landmine, dusty in the sand. As I had done hundreds of times before, I disarmed the TNT and the glowing bangle that was the bane of his existence, faded into nothing.

He double-checked with  _Gyo_ , then, and I could only see his in the faint changes in his face, his features slacken with relief. With a release of tension and the blush-pink sunburn on his cheeks (that's honestly…can't believe I'm saying this, but it's sorta cute on him), and Phinks becomes softer to behold. Even I don't feel my usual spite as I see him now. Inside, I feel softer too.

"Oh," he says. "Thought you would want to do...whatever it is your people do."

He passes me a bundle, blood-soaked. I peek through the folds: my fingers.

"You're babbling for me to do what?"

"You could... _pft_  I don't know," says Phinks, struggling, shoving his hands into his pockets, his mouth twisting this way and that as I look at him dumbly, waiting for him to spell it out. "...Bury them."

I underestimated Phinks' ability to surprise me, underestimated him in general. I'm...touched.

Yet there it lies, so cold as the dead. The permanence of my loss and decision so neatly bundled in a blood-soaked robe.

"Did I make the right choice, Phinks?"

"You know I can't answer that..." He paused to take a final drag. "But I don't blame you. Does it hurt?"

"Not yet. Using it so far, I think the  _better than my natural hand_ was all marketing."

Phinks almost cracks a grin when a crackle in the sky makes us gaze up with a start.

"We don't have much time."

In a sparse patch, we dig six feet, weigh the bundle with rocks, and cover it with blankets of sand.

I feel awkward murmuring the death prayers to myself and with Phinks lingering by. I bid goodbye to part of me and formally begin the mourning period.

I realize the lights in Meteor City have disappeared (power outage?) and we're just two voices in the dark.

"When it rains, it  _tsunamis_  here," says Phinks. "Drowning from flash flooding is a sure-fire way to die here."

He shrouds his body in  _Ren_ as he stalks ahead of me so I don't lose him in the dark.

* * *

We shut the door behind us in time for the storm to unleash the assault of rain like a long-held breath.

In my room with only the grim statues as witnesses, I twist off the cap of my screwdriver. I tap the hollow basin and out the pills come like candy out of a jar.

I run my finger along the cocktail—lithium, klonopin, clozapine, and dusty remains of depakote.

No more than a dozen pills. I thought about getting more in West Gorteau but they wanted a prescription, and medication costs astronomical prices.

Doctors say I'm Type 1 bipolar but I think I'm Type 2, which is less severe. They classified me as Type 1 when I had my one (and only!) manic break.

I know what you're thinking.  _You're an idiot like Machi said. Go on your damn meds Safra_ , but let me persuade you. I don't need them. My mother at her worst was taking two handfuls a day only to be reduced to a drooling zombie. She reduced her dosage and was able to be her gloomy/fairy self again. That was her personality.

I'm the same. Being speedy and gloomy is my personality and I don't want to medicate it away. When a neuro-typical person is ecstatic, it's a good thing, but when a bipolar person is hyper from good news, they're manic and must swallow pills to calm down.

Not all mania is bad and to be frank, I can handle mine. I'm aware of what bipolar can do, watching my mother goes through her saga of episodes. Sure it was hard for her to balance but I'm not like her.

People who have suicidal thoughts need the pills. I don't have those thoughts (sure I've been blue, but I've never attempted anything I swear). And I know how to stop myself from blowing into a full rage episode with Mien.

And the most crucial, while taking Shal's pills, aka TNT-poisoning medication, I CAN'T be on mood stabilizers. They would cancel each other's effects so I'd be manic/depressed  _and_ poisoned and sayonara to my liver.

A doctor would order me to take bipolar meds and stop my Nen training. But I'm not a doctor and with Chrollo's upcoming heist, stopping now is not viable.

I stare at the bottle of pills and the handful of anti-psychotics. I drop them back into my screwdriver.

I don't need them. Instead, I must be more vigilant and not let this environment press my buttons.

I suspect Pakunoda and Shalnark. They're too smart for their own good, but I've successfully veered them away from the topic. It's my problem—no, it's not a problem. I have it 100% under control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been hinting Safra's mental health issues for a while and her condition has been named. She's delusional about her illness, believing she can outgrow it if she stays in remission. To her, she thinks that one bad episode was the cause of the diagnosis and ignoring the years of her loved ones watching her go through what her mother did. That's why Abiji taught her Mien first. The Blues scene I wrote a year ago and I still find it depressing to reread. She abhors that day, and would never act on those thoughts when she's mentally balanced.
> 
> There was SO MUCH to this chapter (Omokage, the lighter scenes with Phinks) but I wanted to officially begin the heist in the next chapter. Danchou has some details to discuss with Safra in private and things are going to be more lighthearted for a while. Cheers! Wish me luck I get another chapter posted before Camp Nanowrimo next month :)


	19. Not the Blushing Type

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a month old and should be have posted sooner but oops. I AM almost done with chapter 20 and hope to have it out in the next 24 hours. In other news nanowrimo is kicking my butt again...I should know better than to try and update while writing 50k words but I never learn the lesson and set ambitious goals ^_^; see you again soon dear fanfic friends

"Aren't you going to share with us, Feitan?"

Outside, while running an errand with Phinks and Feitan, we were caught in a crushing curtain of rain. My poor uwagi provides zero defense and by the time we reach the market, I'm soaked to my bones. I glare at the driest among us, at Feitan, who is as dry as desert sand under his MASSIVE umbrella.

Feitan _dryly_ acknowledges me, zero courtesy to extend behind his poison-purple eyes.

"Eh? A little rain won't kill you."

I could clock him right in his skull collar but I picture my keepsake being smelted in his palm and so I refrain.

I swivel at Phinks, who sputters his lips.

"You think I'm gonna help you?" says Phinks without an ounce of sympathy in his broad body. Clad in a raincoat, his displeased face is munched up from the tightly-pulled draw-strings of his hood. "I _told_ you, when it rains it tsunamis here."

"I don't have a raincoat yet," I say. "It was only sprinkling when we left." Yes I know, hindsight is perfect vision and now I can barely see through the rain-tsunami.

"Your fault," grunts Phinks.

"Machi might have had the mind to lend you hers…" says Feitan.

Don't remind me. Machi has not talked to me since last night.

I press my aching artificial hand hard against my ribs

I'm more than a little grouchy.

Omokage hadn't lied about the growing pains. It was so bad I spent all night squirming on my futon like a worm on hot pavement. Then breakfast was interrupted by a brutal pounding at my door, with threats that I better get my useless butt up and go to the markets to check if shipments were delivered. We three had run into Machi in the corridor, but despite making eye contact with me, the Ice-Queen coldly ignored me.

"Heh, she's madder than I thought," said Feitan, probably taking sadist delight in my murderous face.

Despite the storm and flooded walkways, the market, bottle-necked from weeks without shipments, teems with vendors and buyers. Part of me admires Meteor City for its spunk. I view the same tenacity that gaunt and hungry Gortese needed in spades during the Arduous Famine.

As Feitan turns to follow Phinks, I bend backward to avoid the pointy umbrella tip before it skewers my eyeball. If I punch him hard enough, I might break my hand, and then Omokage would have to make me another new one.

We slog through the soupy sand and sidewalks. Some stretches are so deep I sink to my knees. We clear through one leg of the market before Phinks decides our errand is done. "Yoosh, the shipments made it. _Let's get the hell out of here."_

"Just this one part of the market?" I ask.

"We're hurrying back," says Phinks.

"Danchou will talk heist. Waiting for us to return."

As we turn back in the direction of the cathedral, I catch a peek of the Council HQ. The grounds have been cleaned. No more open grave of unattended corpses. They had left them there for weeks and suddenly they're gone.

"They moved them," says Feitan. "And fast."

"Something must have spooked them," says Phinks.

I don't take the bait, but even before I could respond the sky rumbles and apparently the downpour of rain had only been the appetizer.

My vision floods like I'm swimming and I'm wearing goggles with a leak.

"Feitan, please!"

Once again his purple eyes plainly peer at me as rain pelts his umbrella like machine-gun fire. He's going to tell me to shut up and swim, I already hear it—

"Pst," groans Phinks, sounding on the edge of his last nerve. "You're not _seriously_ going to make me listen to her whine all the way back, are you?"

I brace for a brutal brawl to break out ("I don't take orders from you!") _w_ hile I drown in the rain.

A silent war between them. Then Feitan lifts his arm from his pocket and gold glimmers between his fingers.

"Call it," he says before flipping the coin onto his sleeve.

"Tails," I say.

"Heads."

He reveals the winning side: the spiderweb. In his pocket the coin goes and he nudges his umbrella, in the slightest, granting me a precious dry inch of space under his umbrella. "I don't know why you braced so much. Squabbles are handled fairly in the Troupe."

I don't need to be told twice. I slide under, almost splashing the hem of Feitan's cloak in my haste. "Thank you, Feitan."

"Don't tire yourself out, Fei," says Phinks derisively, earning a feral snit from Feitan.

What is he—I feel it. How Feitan stayed cozy under his umbrella. The warm air streaming from him as if he wore a cordless hair dryer underneath his cloak. His heated Nen. The walking furnace has been _keeping himself_ dry this entire time.

Zero shame as I hover close to him, like a penguin huddling for warmth against the arctic wind front. Color me shocked but Feitan, despite all the scary skulls and bloodlust, smells _nice,_ like warm blankets, and wood crackling in a fireplace.

When we arrive, Phinks shuts the door behind with immense satisfaction. "Go into the atrium."

With horrible timing, both men look at me when I notice how my wet uwagi clings to my chest and midriff like transparent film.

I don't blush easily and even I feel the warm beginnings of a blush in my cheeks. "Imgonnagochange,bye." With fast that should surprise even them, I disappear into my corridor. I waggle my artificial hand once I'm alone, trying to shake off both the embarrassment and the ache.

I want to hurry back but I don't have anything else to change into, besides my nemaki and I'm not going out there in my pjs.

If Danchou wants to talk about the heist then he needs to tell me how he's going to make good on his promise to get my siblings out. I'll corner him after the meeting if I have to—damn it, this hand is killing me!

Think lizard tails incessantly stretching and contracting beneath my skin. Think jittery muscles that jerk and bump like crazed jelly beans. Think rusty wire joints that _screech_ when I tried to pick up my chopsticks for breakfast.

At best it's some dull throbbing, at worst I could mimic the pain by shoving my hand into a full-powered blender. At the moment, I would place it in the middle, stubborn, sore, and swollen.

I push my open door with my foot. In my rush to appease the angry knocking at my door earlier, I hadn't tidied my room or my futon, sheets, pillow or hang up my nemaki so I expect the wrinkled dregs of my morning.

From head to feet I freeze. All else is forgotten when my sight aligns with the presence of something that hadn't been there before. On my table, beside my water pitcher and half uneaten food, sits a wide book. The book's title snaps into focus.

_The Book of Beasts._

Not just any book but a Gortese book.

 _You…_ I say to it in my mind's voice. _In my dusty room…how did you get here?_

We've traveled the same path. All the way up the 79th meridian, through the gullies, groves, and plains of Yorubia, except this literary gem belongs in a brocaded _abode,_ encased in thick glass, not next to my water pitcher.

I hesitate. In Gorteau, someone like me wouldn't be allowed to touch a book of this cultural importance, let alone…open it?

Cracking open the cover releases a Gortese musk of poppy seed and safflower from the oil paints. I turn the tissue-thin pages delicately as if I were touching butterfly wings.

On the title page, the first beast greets me: a lion with a mane of corvid feathers. In the amber ink outlining its fierce eyes, I could see when I squinted, tiny Gortese letters all traditionally painted by teeny hands. The artist had captured life so well, the caboshed lion's head appeared ready to emerge from its pages, feathers pushing the wind back.

As more awe wells in me, the greater my curiosity grows.

Who would leave this here?

The faintest squeak of heel against wet floor.

"Hypnotic, isn't it?" says a mellifluous voice.

Behind me, my door locks.

* * *

My first and only trip to Peijin, the seaside capital of East Gorteau, was when I was a third-year primary school student. We rode the train through the countryside in the early morning, leaving Chongjin while it was still too dark to watch the countryside zip by. We alighted in Peijin before lunchtime. I remember the sea smelled different than in Chongjin, brinier, tangy, the breeze was colder, tougher like it threatened to blow me away like an untied balloon.

We said we would go into the museums and skip lunch because our teachers didn't want to risk us going around ancient artifacts with grubby hands greasy with sesame oil.

I'll admit, with an empty belly I was underwhelmed with the prehistoric fossils and art from Gortese Golden age. It blurred into mush in my memory, but I remember with painful ease of how my belly rumbled. Except for one artifact. One I did not so easily forget.

If the Egyptians have King Tutankhamen's funeral mask, the Gortese have the _Book of Beasts_.

According to our guide and placard, it had taken a single King his entire life to write and draw the poetry.

The book was bound in blue copper and each page was drawn with gold ink tediously by dip pen. I'm beckoned towards it, seeing nothing else in the way a moth sees nothing else but its beautiful flame.

Our museum guide went off script and said with undeniable glee that the West Gortese lamented that our side had it while they had to make due with worthless copies of timeless Gortese art.

I remember circling the encasement, trying to peek the blue cover and the open page, Khaan the feathered-serpent drawn so life-like in certain angles it appeared to flap its wings and escape the pages.

It was then that I experienced a strange pull. My thoughts swam, _go ahead, turn its pages._ I palmed my forehead, but then my whole body seemed to strum like a plucked string.

Was I dizzy from spending too much time in the sun? Maybe I stood far too close to the glass encasement that's heat and UV protected.

I checked the unround faces of my child-classmates yet they were unaffected, oblivious.

"Move it, Safra!" My classmate shoved my shoulder, nearly knocking me off my feet into the glass.

Against the pull, I darted away into the other gallery, alarming a guard and my teacher. As soon as the book was out of my sight, the strange pull, the haze in my mind evanesced, like a broken spell.

"Hot, thirsty," I said to my teacher and all was calm again. They led me to a bench with a water fountain and for the rest of the day at the museum, I dared not return to the book with the hypnotic pull.

* * *

Speaking of charming coincidences...at my shut door, with his hand on the twisted lock, stands Chrollo. For once not slicked back, his loose hair sways boyishly as he turns to me.

I must resemble a scared doe because Danchou wears an expression that's equally guilty and amused at my expense. "Did I give you a start, Safra?"

"That's unfair of you, Danchou. You move so noiselessly."

"Oh I know you heard me."

Does he mean the squeak of his rubber heel against my puddle-trail? "That? That was nothing."

He smiles with warmth my gloomy room welcomes. Whatever worries I harbored that my actions the previous had strained our relations dissipate to my relief.

Today he has foregone his impressive lion's mane coat. His firm chest is buttoned up in a crisp shirt that's almost as transparent as my wet uwagi. The gray would look dull on a dove, but on him, it flatters the glossiness of his pale neck and the glossiness of his black hair. His tailored dark trousers wear well on his silhouette, a sophisticated garment I would associate with formal attire. So did Danchou dress up or down for this occasion where he has locked himself with me in my room?

In front suited Danchou, I'm hyper-aware of my undignified wet-dog state. Hyper-aware of my white thin uwagi. Hyper-aware of my cluttered table (why is my toothbrush sitting there and not in my bathroom WHY?), my futon, bedsheets, and nemaki all wrinkled.

I purposefully turn my body, hiding my soaked side. "Sorry, did you ask me something?"

"The book is Gortese, right? Can you read it?"

I run my fingertip along the tiny oil intricate mythical beasts, the poetry, all drawn in deliberately hard to read cursive grass-style letters. I would require a microscope and about five generations of aristocratic inbreeding to be able to understand the esoteric anecdotes, in-group jokes, and classical language.

I sheepishly shake my head. "It's not that I'm illiterate! This style of poetry is only translatable by those who already know what it says. The aristocrats commissioning art only they could read is what got them into trouble in the first place."

"I see," says Danchou, cupping his chin thoughtfully. "Is there anyone in Gortese society that could read this text?"

"I know the biggest university in Zeoul has a developed literature department," I say. "There's bound to be some gray-haired tenured professor who can read it. But we'd have to go to Gorteau."

"I see," says Danchou. "So we'd have to go even earlier than I anticipated."

"Go earlier? Go where?"

"Do you think you can clear Meteor City of landmines in two weeks?"

"Two weeks?! What happens after two weeks?"

"We go to Zeoul. We'll find someone who can read it there."

"Why go all the way there to read some thousand-year-old poetry?"

A snort. "The Book of Beasts is not the only reason. Isn't West Gorteau a good base to smuggle out your siblings from East Gorteau?"

He beat me to the punch. Of course, West Gorteau is perfect. I can get them out. Set up a home in West Gorteau. Do whatever else Chrollo asks to fulfill my end of the bargain. Say goodbye to the Troupe and then go on to live in WG. "How are you planning on making good on your promise to me?"

"Forgive me, Safra. We should have had this conversation much sooner, but there's a part of the caper still troubling me. I had meant to discuss it last night..."

Without thinking I waggle my hand and like a limb that had fallen asleep, a surge of nerve endings spring up my arm. I make an ugly face of pain at Danchou.

"Does it hurt?" he asks. "May I take a look?"

"No need, Danchou," I say, forcing my expression, hoping it can pass for pleasant.

A jolt at my wrist. Within the span of a blink, Danchou had bridged the distance between us and captured my wrist.

"You know better than to startle me and touch my hand like that Danchou," I say. "You know what happened last time to Phinks."

For all of Dancho's polite, suave persona, my thin threat enlivens him to his chaotic core.

"Would you fight me, Safra? In a straight fight, who would win?"

If Danchou intended to throw me off balance with the question, that certainly did it. The fact that he wasted his breath when the answer is beyond obvious... "Of course you would. How is that even a question? You know my ability isn't suited for combat."

The dubious look he gives me suggests he knows something I don't and he relishes knowing. Given my own bipolar, I could fathom how a man who could be so sweet (dab my tears away when I was in pain) could live as one with the leader of the Phantom Troupe.

"May I take off your glove, Safra?"

"I'll do it." I peel off the layer and the pungent release of the fragrance of my wintergreen body wash reminds me that I haven't looked at the artificial limb since showering last night.

Somehow taking off the glove agitates the pain more and I wish Danchou would hurry up—

Slow to pour like honey, Danchou's Nen salves over the armature. It soothes the muscle, cools the skin and relaxes the jitters.

The tiny hairs on the nape of my neck stand up from the sneaking sense of an eavesdropper's eyes boring into my shoulders

"Something wrong?"

"I thought I heard a noise."

Danchou's Nen glows as violet shards in his gray eyes. "I sense Omokage's Nen," he says as if to explain the noise.

As if calling him by name coaxed him out of hiding, I hear him too now. Deep in the marrow of the wire, his residue dwells.

"He said that would be the case," I say. "Over time his Nen will subside as my body adapt to the armature."

"Hmmm," is all Danchou says. "How do you feel otherwise?"

My turn to "hmmm?"

"I know amputees are given immune suppressants so their bodies don't reject the new limb. Have you experienced any suppression in your immune system?"

I haven't been keeping track since I was poisoned by TNT underground. "Not any more than before."

"Have you sensed any...changes?"

That question is too intentional to be ignored. "What do you mean?"

"Sah, your Nen feels...different, Safra," says Danchou. "It's minute but I sensed it earlier."

A sensible change in my Nen? "Could it be the training? The fact I've been using my Nen more than usual?"

And definitely nothing to do with my mental health, one near slip with mania and a hallucination is not enough to trigger anything, Shut UP Abiji. I could hear that tiny woman's infectious laugh. Bless her.

"Hmmm," says Danchou and it leaves me so unsatisfied as if he doesn't believe me. "Do you like the armature?"

"I'm still getting used to it. But as you said, I've met plenty of amputees and my case is a piece of delicious cake compared to them."

"How did you feel about using your Nen and armature last night?"

"As Omokage said, the armature is taking to my Nen like a duck to water. As if it was made to host Nen." Glad that at least one body part of mine is comfortable with using Nen.

"Phinks told me during debriefing last night," says Danchou.

I bite back my urge to ask: what *else* did Phinks tell you? I have to assume that all this time, Danchou has known and factored in my hallucination. Do I dare bring it up? With his Nen, as mellifluous as his own spoken voice, whispering to my aura, even my own thoughts don't feel private enough.

If Danchou gave me a chance to explain myself I let the chance slip. A shift in the air and I know Danchou is finally done checking my hand.

"Regardless of if you believe Omokage is a Divine Puppeteer," says Danchou, recalling his Nen with a graceful ease I envy. "He did an immaculate job on your armature."

Before Danchou even has time to tuck his arms back into his black as crow trouser pockets, I've sheath my hand back into its protective glove so I don't have to look at it for a millisecond longer.

"You were saying, Danchou," I ask, desperate to change the subject. "There's part of the heist that's still troubling you. If it's anything to do with my siblings I need to know."

He shuts his eyes for a moment in an expression I know, not wishing to be exposed. "I may open it up to the others when we discuss the heist. There's still a part of the equation I haven't figured out."

I peer back to the twisted lock. Is that why Danchou? Are you trying to hide from something?

"What part?"

"The ending, the escape," says Danchou.

"Escape from where?"

My words don't seem to reach him. "We can leave in a similar way, but it's too risky, we could leave by sea, but to arrange that is nigh impossible." He sighs and with phantom feet steps around my futon to my window to face his own symmetrical reflection. The rain at this point has slowed from a crushing curtain to steady drizzle and it's as if Danchou is trying to scry from the pearls of rain on my window.

I wait and after what feels like an eternity, Danchou nudges his head. For a moment, I think he's going to speak but rather, he outstretches his arms with a tired sigh he suddenly and weightlessly freefalls. My sight must be quickening because I watch him fall with abandon, landing back on my futon.

"Safra, I'm STUMPED," he says, projecting his voice to the ceiling and the statues in the corners, so the entire room heard his plea. "What a pain! I know how we're getting there but I can't figure out how we're getting out. If I can't figure it out, it's useless."

Danchou rolling up his sleeves, baring nice-to-look-at forearms, pulls off silly and sexy with his boyish hair tousled from falling, and open shirt collar.

I withhold my giggles for Danchou's sake. My shadow leans over him and the position of short-me looking down at Danchou is not a familiar one. "You have my sympathies Danchou, I know how difficult escapes can be. For one person, me, let alone ten other people."

"That's right," says Danchou, blowing tresses of hair from his brow and tattooed forehead. "Tell me, how did you escape from Fisherman?"

"Really has no one told you the story yet?"

"I waited to hear it from you."

Again, if I were the blushing type, I might have right then. So I tell him, Danchou, sprawled on my futon like a starfish. I leave out the unflattering details, my indecision, bout of depression, how I nearly bit the dust from a mishap with methane...and the Nen hallucinations.

I tell him my discoveries. How I could use my Nen to measure the distance to the surface. How I could supply air from a source with tiny but focused explosions. How I broke through to the surface and the sheer victory of touching the sun's rays after being underground in the dark for so long.

I had been too absorbed in my story to notice when a bulb had flashed brightly over Danchou's head.

"Safra..." he says my name with fondness, his tongue riding it like a wave.

I pause in the middle of a word. "Hmmm?"

A low cynical laugh as he masks his tattooed forehead in embarrassment. "Why didn't I think of it sooner?"

Like the regretful accident of squeezing out too much toothpaste, I want to backtrack because I must have said something obliviously.

"The caper can progress forward and I owe it to you." He sits up and pats the wrinkles in his clothes, his face afresh, glowing with inspiration. Precisely the same glow as Omokage when he waltzed into tragedy to bestow upon me one of his newest creations.

A harsh knock at my door interrupts my train of thought. I expect Feitan or Phinks again, but instead, dry garments of the _heavenly kind_ drape over my head. "Take these and hurry up," says perishingly cold voice I missed. Like a curtain, I swept the garment leg from my eyes and see Machi's cotton-candy hair and sharp blue eyes. I'll take her icy voice with its cutting edge over her frigid silence any day.

"Danchou, everyone is almost in the atrium," she says, making it sound like I've been the big hold up, not Danchou who locked us in my room.

"After Safra is done with Shalnark, sit with her, Machi. Make her do the Water Divination test again."

"What?" We chorus in unison as I rip off the clothes from my head.

"I'd do it myself but I need to do topography research. Take care of it for me, Machi."

Not a note of disapproval from Machi to Danchou. But on me, her angular eyes pin me to the floor, as sharp as her Nen needles. Her pupils dilate and with a rapid blink akin to the shutter of a camera, she seems to commit to memory the divergent state of my Nen.

Danchou retrieves the _Book of Beasts_ from my table. "Finally, let's begin."

* * *

I dress fast, nearly tripping and breaking my ass in the process. In the atrium, Phinks and Fei smolder from their side as soon as I walk in, again as I were the cause of the late start.

Danchou has a touch of raven to him, how he pushes air back in his black gait when he claims his rightful position in the center of the atrium.

"Go ahead, Shalnark," says Danchou.

Shalnark with gusto unveils a large scroll as large as a living room rug. A map of an island shaped like a sickle.

"The Mitene Union," announces Shalnark. The others gather and I don't bother to push for space between big dudes Franklin and Uvo, settling for peeking around their dangling arms.

Danchou directs the Phantom Troupe to the Eastern side of the map, finally uttering what they all already knew. "We're going to East Gorteau."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoiler there. If you read the summary you knew this was going to happen XD I had to edit this one quite a bit, too way too long to write (extra long work hours) so I hope you liked this. Sorry, not sorry but I had to put Danchou in a suit shirt and trousers, a throwback to Yorknew (wait this is a prequel...) and Danchou suited-bishounen-edition. The man looked dashing, ok? Come to think of it, when I introduced the Troupe, they were all in their YN gear, which makes no sense they would be wearing similar styles years prior...but you have been so kind to let me get away with it. I should switch up their styles a tad...


	20. Gloves vs. Touch Screens

"We're going to East Gorteau." Danchou declares, the Troupe acknowledges this with silence, and I dangle in a daze.

Where I stand in the sliver of space between Uvogin and Franklin's gargantuan arms, his gloomy grays swell at me. He awaits my reaction but I can't quite match his eloquent intensity and I'm ill-prepared with my messy ponytail and lent lavender shirt.

You told me  _Zeoul_  in West Gorteau. You trespassed into my room, moseyed around with this secret in your head and not once did you tell me.

Why did you let me find out this way? But I almost know the answer.

"You knew I would say no," I say, my slighted tone an act of rebellion.

'What do you mean," asks Feitan more of a threat. " _N_ _o_?"

"I can't go back."

"An order from Danchou is absolute," says Franklin, but the baritone is an impartial whisper to me.

"I can't go back."

"Are you unaware of who you're back-talking to?!" says Nobunaga.

I shake my head vehemently. "I can't go back." I long for a spectacular disruption. A whip of lightning, a tremor in the cathedral foundation, any message from fate validates how much it hurts. It hurts. My hand, my  _real_ hand, I want to massage it and soothe it, but it's not there anymore—

"Safra?" says Machi, the first voice with true concern.

I back into something—some _one_  it turns out. Strange enough I recognize the lean-muscled arm that squeezes my shoulders—affectionately or preemptive defense measure I'm not sure. Shalnark who had been ahead to my left near Machi and Paku now consoles me.

"Paku told us."

"But did she show you? Make you smell how human skin barbeques when it's caught between electrical barbed wire?" The subject of mangled bodies agitates my hand. I've never been squeamish with blood, but charred blood on a comrade's body crosswires with the sight of my three-fingered hand covered with charred blood and  _oohhh_  I could blow chunks.

"We know what you're scared of."

"Do you? I'm not  _supposed_ to be  _alive_. I can't just waltz back in there."

"No one is going to drag you back to prison," says Paku. "They have the impossible task of prying you away from us."

"And in case you haven't noticed Miss-Explodey-Hands," says Shalnark. "You're  _much_  harder to lock away with shackles now."

"Please don't make jokes about my hand right now..."

"How's the hand?" asks Shalnark without missing a beat.

"Like it's still there."

"Ah, phantom limb. I was wondering why you turned green in the face. This will help."

It's almost instinctual when I see him reach from behind, I try to shirk away, but Shalnark is still faster with his needle.

"Nn—" I manage before his bat-wing needle stabs my gloved armature. I shut my eyes, gnash my teeth and brace tight for Shalnark's Nen, and wait for him to get it over with...but nothing. I peek one eye open at a time and unclench my jaw. No Nen shooting through mine, only the sight, which sobers me like a splash of cool water; the needle upright in my hand. The tiniest bit of pain kicks my system to unclench the invisible, no-longer-there hand.

"Does it hurt?" I hear his voice smile gently over my ear.

I shake my head with a sigh of relief and he plucks his needle.

"Think of it as your brain still lagging from a bunch of junk files you need to wipe," says Shalnark.

"If she hates the armature so much, I'll cut it off myself," says Nobu, with a threatening chunk of his samurai sword. "Danchou gave her an order and she's refusing—"

"Be quiet a moment, Nobu," says Danchou. "Safra is right."

Not quite a gasp, but grunts of surprise from the other members. In the silence, as Danchou gathers his words, the steady rhythm of rain and every drip from the high ceiling dotting the atrium floor magnifies in the silence.

"You have every right to hate me right now, Safra," says Danchou. "Pakunoda  _showed_ me. The others had the information relayed by me, but Paku showed me the visceral memories you shared with her. I ask for your cooperation, but I don't ask it lightly. I want you to come with me to East Gorteau by my side as a comrade. Go with me, and you will not be trapped there again. You have my word."

I am not a member of the Troupe, a stoic reminder. I could walk out, but Danchou knows and I know I won't. Shalnark only loosens his grip when I ask, "how are we getting there?"

"East Gorteau, in what experts say is an attempt to funnel in hard cash, is going to host a guided tour," says Danchou. "In three months, we'll be part of 70 tourists boarding a charter plane to Peijin departing Zeoul."

" _The_  hermit kingdom," says Shalnark. "Safra will be our  _liaison_." His tongue rides down the curvy French word as if it were a slide.

"In two weeks time, we'll split up into groups and meet in Zeoul."

"Why split into groups?" I ask.

"Each group will have a job to complete before arriving in Zeoul," says Danchou. "Gortese citizens aren't allowed on the guided tour  _unless_  they're working as translators. The tour company has contracted a translation agency and translators will be given to each group. Safra will be hired by the agency."

"I never registered in West Gorteau as a citizen."

"That's why Shalnark is going to take care of your passport, and National Security Number," says Danchou. "It's convenient that you're not from Peijin or Zeoul so no one will recognize you in either place. What's your natural hair color?"

Out of nowhere the topic of hair. I scratch my itching roots that were peeking through now. "Copper. Darker than Paku's."

"That's a dye-job?" asks Nobunaga.

"You don't see the different colored hair growing out of her scalp?" asks Machi.

"For extra precaution...and I like dark hair."

"You'll be spending three months in West Gorteau. Learn their mannerisms, accent, style. Let the whole image become second nature. Then no one will recognize you in East Gorteau."

I picture West Gortese girls. By default, most of them from their nutrition-rich upbringing are at least 4 cm taller than me. College educated, translucent skin and elfish limbs, loaded with a lifetime of exposure to foreign culture, news, books. music. Music. In my brief landing in WG, I learned about a growing international phenomenon known as Z-pop, aka tunes made in Zeoul or Gortese pop.  _This_ group is debuting,  _that_ group fell out of style,  _this_ group is breaking records,  _that_ group has a dating scandal—I would need a Ph.D. to keep up meanwhile WG girls knew all about it. And I would have to mimic  _that_ in three months?

Then again, surviving in East Gorteau is 100% about your ability to pretend. That experience is applicable...I guess.

"What will happen in East Gorteau?" I ask.

His sympathy gives way to a coy smirk. "We're thieves. We steal."

"What is there to even steal from East Gorteau?" asks Feitan.

"Valuable stones?" asks Nobunaga. "Reserve of wealth hidden under that despot— _what's his name?_ "

"Ming Jol-ik," I say, the name dirt between my teeth.

"That's the one. Under Mah Jong-ik's mattress?"

Were I less disorientated I might have chuckled at Nobu butchering that tyrant's name. May there be a place ready for that fat-ass in Hell when it's his turn.

"Danchou wants something...one-of-a-kind," says Franklin. "We're crossing the distance equivalent of ten time zones. Money under a mattress isn't going to stir him."

"I was half joking," says Nobu under his breath.

"We're talking about the jungle, right?" says Uvogin, near me in profile. He chomps his jaw, ready to sink his teeth into the thrill. "Maybe a rare beast with giaaaaanormous ivory tusks?"

"Does Safra have any idea?" asks Machi. "Did Danchou mention it when he was in your room?"

"Danchou was in her room?" I hear Phinks asking Feitan who shrugs.

"He...didn't flat out tell me—"

_Click! Click!_

"Isn't it obvious?" says Omokage, his lip piercing clicking his teeth like a teaspoon against a ceramic cup. He waits for us to offer any last guesses and the steady rhythm of rain magnifies in the voiceless atrium. " _No_ one has a guess?" With silvery melodious precision, framed with an acid smile he says, "He wants to steal a book."

A ghost of a smile from Danchou. Hunched forward in his humble position, from behind, to hold up in midair, the Book of Beasts.

That? A thousand-year-old book. Danchou is hell-bent on traveling across the planet for some thousand-year-old dusty book that few people of the mobile phone age can read?

He passes it with two hands to Pakunoda. When she cracks open the cover, poppy seed and safflower conflict with the draft of rain-soaked stone. The others crowd around her. Feitan stretches his collared neck to clearly see the pages as she turns the corners with her manicured finger.

"A work of art," says Pakunoda.

"So  _this_? We're stealing  _this_?" asks Nobunaga. Danchou's big heist that had been whispered in anticipation about since I appeared turned out to be nothing more than a book-snatching.

It's not the tremor I wanted, but the ground shakes as Uvogin crosses the floor and towers over everyone. "Wait but we have this one here? Why bother the fuss of getting this one in the market? Why travel to some island floating off Yorubia?"

"Because Danchou wants the real one," I say.

They yield to me and come to think of it, none of them have been condescending or singled me out as the newbie. Has blowing off my hand earned me some reverence from them?

"The one here is a fake?" asks Pakunoda.

"Not a fake, but a commissioned copy."

"What would you know about that?" asks Feitan.

"I've seen the real one," I say. "At the National Gallery in Peijin."

Pakunoda shuts the cover. "Can you translate the name?"

"The Book of Beasts."

"The Book of  _Nen_  Beasts," Danchou corrects me.

Not sure if I misheard. I fault my Japanese or maybe my ears are still recovering from the explosion yesterday. With relief, I find the others with their raised brows, mouthing 'Nen Beasts', are just as out of the loop as I am, for a change.

"Nen beasts, Danchou?" asks Machi.

There Danchou defies his dull-dove gray clothes and sits with purposeful conspicuousness. "The possessor of the Book of Nen Beasts also possesses the Nen Beasts inked on the pages. Imagine those vivid drawings enlivened by your Nen."

"Nen Beasts...we've seen them before. Same kind of creature as Indoor Fish," says Pakunoda.

"A book full of Indoor Fish," says Shalnark.

Uvogin only whistles.

Is now a good time to ask what are Indoor Fish? Are there Outdoor Fish too?

"As Safra said," says Danchou. "What Paku is holding is a copy and a copy won't work as only the original can."

"You say it's in Peijin?" Franklin asks me, bending over the map, reading in katakana, Pe-i-jin, not a city-dot but a star to dignify it as the capital of the hermit kingdom.

"Do you remember much of the museum?" asks Shalnark. "Of Peijin?"

"It's been ten years. My memory is patchy."

They glance over to Pakunoda, assuredly and already I imagine us sitting together, her purple Nen peeking into the confines of my mind, scrapping the scattered bits and pieces like ash from an incinerator.

"In some gallery?" asks Phinks. "Just sitting there for public viewing?"

"What's your point?" I ask.

"How has it not been stolen before by some other Nen user?"

"How should I know?"

"It's not that no one has ever tried to steal of the Book of Nen Beasts," says Danchou. "No one has ever been successful."

"Is security that intense?" asks Nobunaga.

Once again, they round on me as if I had all the answers. "Besides a guard, security didn't seem anymore cut-throat than other pieces in the gallery."

"All too vague," says Nobu.

"I should have known I would need to recount the security detail of the Book of Beasts ten years later," I snap.

"You were just a kid then, Safra," says Danchou without an ounce of blame towards me. "You weren't a Nen user. You wouldn't have been able to judge, especially something you couldn't yet sense. It means whoever created the system knows how to thwart Nen users."

An intrigued turn in the atmosphere, a shifting masses

"So we're thieving the unobtainable?" asks dreamy-eyed Uvogin. If his imagination matches his personality, Uvogin is already there, among the jungle primary colors, tossing his bear pelt to exchange for breezy spotted animal skin drawers, his skin a vacationer's mahogany, sand spilling from his toes as he kicks up the coast. Silibant and salivating, he says, "Sah, let's wait no more! Give us the order Danchou!"

Before Danchou can inspire more vivacity, my shoe squeaks in the echoic hall as I step forward to say, "...wait."

Uvogin pouts at me as if I meanly popped his party balloon with a pin.

"How are we getting  _out_  of East Gorteau?"

"The same way we arrive?" says Nobunaga.

"Any unauthorized aircraft will be shot down by the airforce." I don't care what Uvo thinks he is, he cannot survive impact from a _missile_. "By sea, the coastguard will torpedo anything in their waters."

There are probably more ships patrolling the coast than there are fish in the East sea—not an entirely gross exaggeration. EG blows almost every penny on the insane military budget and our side of the sea is overfished.

"How are we getting out of East Gorteau?" I repeat, not budging until I know why he thanked me before.  _Why didn't I think of it before? The caper can progress, thanks to you_.

"That's where you come in Safra," says Danchou.

And then he tells me. We weren't going to fly out or swim out, we were going to walk out. During our time in Zeoul, it would be my responsibility to excavate a tunnel under the river of landmines between West and East Gorteau.

"Can you do that?"

I've seen this scene before, Danchou. It was here, after first meeting you, your face as smooth as stone, you asked me to stay. If I had known then what I know now, of what you would have asked me, would I have stayed? Would I ever.

* * *

Before dismissing us, Danchou splits us up into groups, each group departing at different times. My group will leave Meteor City last to give me enough time to clear the landmines. Shalnark plops his muscular arm on my shoulders with impressive strength, almost knocking the wind out of me.

"Yooo, follow me!"

There's no following as much as him dragging me like a mule out of the atrium as the PT disburse.

'Where are we going, Shal?"

"Oh? Did Danchou not tell you?" he asks with an eager smile. Strong facial muscles you have there Shal, to be smiling all damn day.

After a maze of winding hallways, we enter what I assume to be his room. A chamber larger than mine but heavily curtained so the only light is the electric purple of his humming computer case. So stuffy in here, I reckon he's never opened a window, or let natural light touch his walls.

He switches on LED lights, exposing the cluttered state (hoarder or absent-minded geek?) of his room. I maneuver my way around plastic tubs full of cables, and assorted handheld metal devices I have no hope of identifying.

Before I can clarification, Shalnark snaps his fingers. "Oh! I almost forgot! I have a present for you."

On his long table, he picks up a small device shaped like a candy bar. He presses the screen center. Already this tiny screen with its high-resolution floral background so dimensioned that it  _moves_ as he saunters over puts the flat-colored tv sets in EG to utter shame.

"The latest Sunsamg phone. The Gortese make good phones," he says. "Urm...how do you like it?"

He misinterprets my silence for disappointment, but I'm actually speechless, seized with childhood giddiness of receiving a brand new toy.

"You can watch movies, read books, browse the internet, banking, take high-res photos, 16 frps, live video-chat with anyone around the world—Look, I even put the settings into West Gortese," he says. "They don't have an East Gortese language patch, only West so I hope it works."

The phone turns easily in my gloved hand, if not a little slippery in its sleek, rounded design. After spying on many of the devices in Zeoul, holding one feels like I'm joining the 21st century finally.

"I love it, Shal. Thank you," I finally manage to get out and my stilted thank-you doesn't carry the earth-shifting weight I wish it did. "I'm a little tongue-tied. This is the nicest piece of tech I've ever owned."

Even though I wish to say more, Shalnark pats the crown of my head affectionately.

"The Troupe phone numbers are saved in the contact list. Tinker with it a bit, change the background, font color, personalize the interface. Whatever. Make it yours. Play with it."

Admittedly, a little excited, I press the center as Shalnark had. No response. I do it again a little harder but nothing.

"It hates me."

Shalnark drags his palm over his chagrined face. "Bleh. Why didn't I remember?" He steals the phone and dives into one of his plastic bins. Almost like a cartoon, things go flying—cords, cables, CDs, CPUs on the already cluttered floor. "Come on! Or maybe I moved it to the other tub when I cleaned?"

Running on autopilot (no pun intended) Shalnark drags another tub over and digs through its messy of contents.

"We made such a fuss over your hands too. Why didn't I remember before giving you the phone for the first time?"

"Remember what?"

Shalnark's blond head rises for air. "Your gloves! Screens and gloves are mortal enemies." More rummaging and he's almost waist deep, about to head-stand in the tub. "I know it's in here—aha!"

Back in my glove slides the phone, now with a plastic cover. "Try it now."

I press the center and the whole phone vibrates, responding to my touch.

"Goodie," he says. "Set up a passcode in case you lose your phone. It won't stop any diligent hackers, but it will give me enough time to remotely wipe everything. Also, try not to lose your phone."

I set up a two-tier password. One four digit code and a swipe pattern, with an affirmative click, I access the home screen.

"Check out the camera. Better than some of the huge high-definition cams you see."

"You played with this," I say, skimming through the twenty frames of Shalnark, like a stop-motion film, sticking his tongue out at the camera, then winking and finally posing with the peace sign. The ultra-real images captured his complex juniper eyes and each frame all but bursts from his beaming joviality.

"I can teach you a new word. We call those selfies."

Self-ies.

"Now let's get to business."

He parks his behind in his wheeled chair and clicks 100 wpm at his keyboard.

"What business exactly?" I say, carefully pocketing the phone in my trouser pocket.

"The whole point of everything is to smuggle your siblings out, right, Miss Explodey-Hands?" says Shalnark, his eyes aglow from the brightness of his computer screen. "We're going to hire you a  _Hunter!"_

 


	21. Enjoy the Detours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shalnark and Safra enter the Hunter's Tavern to hire a Lost-Hunter. The Hunter she encounters takes her on a detour.

"…Hunter?" I ask innocently.

His fruit-bat eyes bulge at me and I brace myself for a lethal dose of Incredulous-Shalnark.

"You know… _Hunters_?" He motions his hands as if to summon the mental image and spark my recollection.

I picture huntsmen clubbing their wildebeest-prey with woolly mammoth tusks. "I know hunter as in…meat-hunters?"

"Oooohhh, Safra," he says pitifully and steadies himself on his computer table. "You've never heard of Hunters? Nada? Zilch?"

Once again I've stumbled over and collided my clumsy self into a new-world reality.

"Hmmm, maybe they go by a different name in your neck of the woods," he murmurs thoughtfully, cupping his hairless chin. "East Gorteau must have them, then again…could it be that the Hermit Kingdom has kept Hunters out all these decades—"

"What are Hunters?" I ask. "And how is a Hunter gonna help with my predicament?" Again, my mindset: huntsmen, tusks, and mammoths.

Suddenly he smiles, his trademark adorable-disarming smile and knuckles my head. From anyone else, the gesture would be condescending rather than affectionate. "Oh, you're cute, Safra."

I know why Shalnark is fond of me. He enjoys shattering my ancient perspective where he gets to unveil a new part of the world to me.

"As for a Hunter," he says. "I could tell you, but I'd rather show you."

He reaches from behind. I flinch reflexively, expecting to fall victim to his stealthy bat-wing needles yet again (I hope he sterilizes them after each use), but instead, between his fingers is a plastic card. Barcoded, lined with a magnetic strip, blue and red, but what catches my attention are the two criss-crossing Xs. On the front in crisp font: Sha-naa-ku.

"You're one of them? A Hunter?"

He gives me the card to hold. It's sleek against my gloves, unmarred by scratches as if it were brand new despite, judging by the issue date, it being five years old.

"Careful," he says. "You could hock that and buy East Gorteau with it."

This? This card with the preschool-primary colors is worth trillions of jenni?!

"You're serious?"

He lists the perks: passport-free access around the world, free transport, and banking privileges. "I can mosey into a bank and get a 100 million jenni loan without collateral, you know if I was into that sort of thing..."

My grip softens because unconsciously, I'm scared to damage it like glass.

"Is it a secret society?"

"It's public. An elite organization of humanity's best and brightest. They track down priceless treasures, explore uncharted lands. Unknown to the public thouuuugh—"

I lean in.

"All Hunters are Nen users. Every single one of them. Part of the secret job description. Only Hunters are supposed to know of the disciple of Nen. You're a novelty."

"A secret society of Nen users. Like the Book of Beasts," I say. "Publically regarded as the Book of Beasts, but to your secret cult—"

_"Association."_

"To Nen Users, it's the Book of Nen Beasts," I say. "You said you're the only Hunter in the PT. If Danchou taught the Troupe, how did he did uncover the secret of Nen?"

"That's Danchou's secret to tell." He veers the subject. "You know..." he drawls, sliding into his computer chair. "You could get a Hunter's license. Pass the exam and it's all yours."

"I'm supposed to be off the grid, remember?"

"So am I," he says with a handsome wink. Oh, stop it, Shalnark.

"So, which of those reasons inspired you to get a license?"

"None that I listed, but this," he says and with a resolute click of his mouse, he slides away from his monitor to yield to me.

On his monitor with the vibrancy settings cranked up, is a pair of pixelated wooden doors. He clicks to enter and the doors, enhanced with a cracking hinges sound effect, spread open.

The pixelated picture changes to an equally pixelated scene in a saloon, homage to the wild west.

I'm not a designer, but you would think a group allegedly worth trillions of jenni could splurge on some better-looking web design.

"Not impressed, I see," he says.

My eyes go desert-dry from his too-white screen. "What is this?"

"I'll show you."

I'm going to die a dusty bag of bones before Shalnark 'shows me' what's so damn impressive about this Hunter thing.

"What information would you like?" asks the center character, a boxy bartender with brown hair and a bow-tie.

Shalnark clicks through the various menus. "Brace yourself."

"For what—"

Aura, fulgent as the sun, envelopes us and our surroundings transform.

* * *

After Shalnark's retina-burning screen, I have to adjust to the yellow haze. Glares dance on my vision, like phantoms.

"Shalnark..." I ask the blond beside me and swivel around, matching the saloon, patrons, tables with the image from Shal's monitor. "Are we..."

"In the Hunter's Tavern, aka the best net database for info on people and loot."

There's no smell. It should be easy to explain, the absence of scent, but my brain knows something is missing. When I picture saloon I await the dingy odor of wet dish rags, beer hops, and manky patrons with sweat-stained pits that burn nostrils a mile away. There's no sound either. No clinging of glasses, slurping of foamy drinks, and no garbled banter or wheezing laughter from tipsy patrons. We might as well be standing in a vacuum.

The voice behind snaps me out of it.

"Here is the information you requested on Lost-Hunters," says the boxy bartender with the bow-tie, no longer a pixelated image on a screen, but life-sized and talking to me.

"Here is the comprehensive list of all Lost-Hunters with the assocation," he say. He passes Shalnark what I at first think is a bar menu, but with a flick of Shal's index finger, the contents scroll like a phone screen. "You may use the filter options to condense your search. Press the contact button beside their names to solicit a job request."

Shalnark shows me proudly. "I told you I'd show you. A full list of Human and Contraband traffickers ready at your disposal! Lookie! Drug-mauls! Hitmen! Renegade Prostitutes! The database is your oyster!

Shalnark's saccharine smile and the gruesome topic of human-trafficking nearly triggers my gag reflex.

"How is  _any_  of this legal?" I ask glumly.

"The Hunter's Association belongs to no country and thereby follows its own rules. Sahh." He sighs, mouth dangling open as he read through the options menu. "Let's see...we should filter those who serve East Gorteau."

The list instantly shrinks to less than a 1/3.

"Let's filter by those who smuggle people, not just goods, and for fun, let's filter by experience—"

It's out of my hands as Shalnark plays with the filters and with each tweak, the list shrinks ever so few in number.

"Change from alphabetical to ascending by the number of trips and voila!" He shows me the menu he had whittled down, to one listing that stands out among the rest.

I see the floating #10 at the top for number of trips to East Gorteau and a sad list of 0s that followed the top listing. "Only one Hunter has ever been?"

Human traffickers I never quite picture as human. More like shadows who creep in bleak hallows of society, preying on the desperate and desolate.

"Phew!" Shalnark says with an impressed whistle. "This Hunter has been over ten times."

" _Ten_ trips while everyone else has zero." All this time I've been told it's impossible to sneak in and out of East Gorteau and some Hunter does it on a regular basis? But no one else in this amazing organization has done it? I stare at the floating font, wishing for more. Who  _is_  this Hunter? Whoever they are, they've chosen to keep their name anonymous, and remain contactable only by digital message.

Shalnark's shrugs his sleeve-less shoulder. "It's what is said on their profile. They sound like a good bet to contact, buuuuuut," he drags the word out coyly. "It could also be a trap."

"A trap? What kind of trap?"

"Rule of thumb, for jobs that are more black-market that attract illicit patrons, anything too good to be true means it's a Bounty-Hunter."

"So we both need to be careful." Internationally, I'm still considered an illegal refugee. "Should we skip this listing?"

"It's worth a shot," he says, not in the least bit worried, but I don't think I've ever seen Shalnark worry over anything. He hit Contact and is already typing a message at 100 wpm. "If I sense anything funny, we'll cut contact and go with someone else for the smuggling transaction."

Transaction? My siblings are a transaction?

"It's that easy," he says and with a final click of the virtual keyboard, poof! his words crack into digital shards and disappear into cyberspace to be delivered into some Hunter's inbox.

No complaints from me. Shalnark has done a splendid job, navigating the system. I like convenience, but I can't help but feel detached. This...transaction is no different from the people in West Gorteau. On their phones, I spied them buying furniture, clothes, cars, apartments with the click of a button. Like it was nothing, meant nothing. This transaction, the very thing I've been most anxious to do for ages has been completed by the click of a button.

"Request sent," says the bartender. "Request can take up to ten days to receive a response. Do you have any other inquiries today?"

"Go ahead, ask him anything that's niggling your brain."

I face the boxy bartender who is uncannily sentient. Shalnark and I are different heights and yet he registers that as he faces us individually.

"What are," I ask. "Nen Beasts?"

The bartender's neutral face didn't move long enough for me to wonder if he had glitched, but he finally answers. "Nen Beasts are Guardian Nen Spirits. Visible to Nen users without the use of gyo, but invisible to everyone else."

"Can you create Nen Beasts and if so how do you make Nen Beasts?"

"I'm surprised this is free information," says Shalnark. "I've never seen it listed before so maybe it's free as long as you know what to ask."

"Nen Beasts born from an individual are manifestations of their creator's Nen, in personality, power, vision, and desire. Users may incorporate live animals or mythical visions of animals. No process is identical."

"Like drawings?" I ask. "From a book?"

He doesn't answer. So I try another question.

"What is the Book of Beasts?"

"The Book of Beasts is an epic tome of poetical writings and bestiary from Ancient Gorteau," says the bartender. "The work is comprised of poems formed as animal pictographs. Written during the Qian dynasty, it is regarded as one of the earliest surviving great works of literature."

That I all pretty much knew. "Last question…what is the Book of  _Nen_  Beasts?"

"Deposit 10,000 jenni for more information."

Before Shalnark could meep, I'm already double-pressing the bright green PAY button.

"Oi! Slow down or you'll make it glitch and we'll be stuck here until a Hacker-Hunter digs us out!"

A  _cha-ching_  sound to mark a successful transaction.

"The Book of Nen Beasts is an epic tome of poetical writings and bestiary from Ancient Gorteau. Ownership of the book gives users the ability to call forth the beasts drawn in the pages. The Nen capabilities of the fifty beasts is transcribed in the poetry."

So Danchou wants a zoo of Nen beasts at his disposal.

"So I could read their abilities...if only I knew how to read the damn thing," I say, with a sigh, I prop myself against the counter.

"A very large book of Indoor Fish. Danchou is a madman," says Shalnark but with a laugh. "No more questions, right?"

"I'm good. Lunch after this? I'm famished."

Right as I extend my knees to stand from my stool and depart with Shal, a bell chimes and an envelope icon blinks at us in read-me-now red.

"Sheesh! That was conveniently fast," says Shalnark, pressing the icon. He reads the message. "Request received...Wants to meet for further consultation."

"Is that promising?" I ask.

"Bound to be. Hmmmm, when's a good time to schedule? We're leaving Meteor City the same time, so in two-ish weeks. Let me double-check the schedule and we'll get back to them."

Sounds reasonable. My head's feeling a little funny, probably dehydration and the lack of moisture in the air isn't helping.

Shalnark's Nen seems to knock on the Tavern, as if to say, please open the door to let us out. Nothing.

He tries again a little firmer.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

He tries a third time but the whole Tavern, even the bartender seems frozen. Could it have glitched?

"Hmm, odd? Usually it's very responsive. Sheesh don't tell me it's glitched and we have to wait for a Hacker-Hunter to— _oooi!_  Wait! Stop!"

I hadn't even noticed until Shalnark's cry. First an odd light-headedness then a floatiness in my entire body like I was on the cusp of fainting. I glance down and don't see my body there. My legs gone, my torso transparent and fading fast. "Shal—what's going on?!"

"Barkeep! Tell 'em to hang on a second!" Shalnark tries to anchor me, but it's no use. His skewers my immaterial torso, a void where my ribs had once been.

Panicked, I throw myself against him. His pulse races under my cheek, but I could still feel the slippery aura creep in between the touch of our skin, and pry us apart.

My vision blurs and the last I feel before losing my entire state of being is falling painlessly and immaterially through Shalnark like a ghost.

* * *

I'm cold all over.

My senses jolt at the resurgence of noise, scent, and atmosphere and I know I'm back in the 3-D world. No longer transparent, but I miss being immaterial, if only to not feel the freezing cold.

I'm indigenous to the jungle so cold is a foreign concept to me. I've experienced brushes with it on chilly nights in Meteor City and that felt like a cute tickle compared to this. It drives through my loose sleeves and settles into the marrow of my bones like liquid lead. My nasal cavities are so painfully dry, breathing hurts. This is true caliber of cold, the kind that ended wars because troops could no longer march on feet black from frostbite, the perma-frost kind in the Taiga biome where no human dares to inhabit, the kind that traps Dante's Satan in the ninth circle. Even colder than Machi's targeted gaze.

Gulls circle high in the pastel gradient while the sun, a golden yolk, breaks in the West. Last I checked it was late morning. Was I knocked out for several hours? On the icy gales, rides salty sea air. Where am I? The tips of my gloves are chalky white from the ground. Stiff from cold, I manage to roll over, feeling my phone as a solid square in my pocket. I'm laying on a chalky cliff, towering over the bay. Along the coast, ember colored foliage of a beach forest.

This is a conjured illusion, right? "This can't be real."

"I assure you, it is."

I whirl around and a…man stands behind me. I'm hesitant in that observation, my only real clue is the depth of his masculine baritone voice. His stance is non-aggressive, hands tucked casually into the pockets of his loose frock.

"Yo," he greets.

Not the abstract criminal, lurking in the shadows, exploiting the desperate I pictured. He looks more like a nomad than a trafficker or bounty hunter with his shapeless clothes, and navy scarf swaying in the wind. The brim of his turban-cap shades his face, masking his features. Poignant among the navy-gray-drab of his clothes, my eyes naturally target the reddish feather, perched between the weave of his turban like a strange cowlick.

Play it cool. He could be a Bounty-Hunter. How am I supposed to tell the difference between a human-trafficker and a bounty-hunter by first glance?

"Are you the smuggler—erm I mean, Lost-Hunter?" I withhold a wince; I'm a total amateur.

Hesitation before he surprises me by asking in astonishingly fluent Gortese, "Are you the client?"

Should I reveal it to him? That I am Gortese? It lends credibility to him being a smuggler who has gone ten times, because I can't imagine a Bounty-Hunter going that far for a facade.

"Are you the client?" he asks again.

"You're looking at her," I answer in Gortese, giving him the hint he wants. I'm not enthused about standing up in the wind, but it's more dignified than being rolled over in the chalk. I find it too disconcerting to speak to his shadowed face so I vaguely peer at his scarf as a focal point. "Where are we?"

"Care to guess?"

Again, answering a question with another question, fine.

"Care to give me a hint?"

"It's head-smackingly obvious," he says, oozing with derision.

I give him a look and he begrudgingly obliges.

"Stop thinking this place is a concoction of your wild imagination and the answer is simple."

My inflamed mind doesn't easily let up so I think hypothetically. If I saw this scene in a magazine where would I guess? Judging by the brutal cold, we are WAY up North, where penguins vacation when they're sick of the artic. It's late summer so anywhere else would be more temperate.

"North West is all urbanized sprawl from Yorknew. If we were there, we'd be sharing cliff space with a few ten million jenni sky scrappers. So...North East Yorubia?

He tuts in a manner I find  _very_  annoying. "You're not listening. Your incredulity is blinding you from the simple answer," he says. "Central Yorubian time is noon. Does that setting sun over there look like noon to you?" He points a tanned hand to the West.

"For your information, I had noticed the time. What time is it here? How long was I knocked out for?"

"You weren't," he says.

My brain wants to dash into the logistics, but I refrain. Again, HYPOTHETICAL, if Meteor City is late morning now and if the sun is setting here and there's no time lost that could only mean we've magically crossed several time zones... As he said, remove the incredulity and the answer becomes clear.

We're not on the Northern coast of Yorubia...not even in the Western hemisphere anymore... The words don't leave my mouth easily, again, part of me stubbornly doesn't want to believe...

He waits for my answer and I oblige him.

"North...Azia?"

"Turkei, to be precise."

Turkei as in the Northern-most country of North Azia? I swivel around, taking in the ledge, the forests, the bay once more time to confirm. Yes, I've heard of this place. The white cliffs of Turkei, colloquially known as the top of the Earth.

I remember Shalnark's arm skewering me like a kebab. In the span of a blink, I traveled thousands of miles. "What k-kind of Nen ability did you use on me to ghost-transport me here?"

A chuckle. "Ghost-transport?" He scratches the side of his turban, stray black hairs poking out like a broom brush. I can't read his expression under the brim of his cap, but the gesture reads to me a little...sheepish.

"Saw someone else do it and I'm a copy-cat sometimes," he says in a suspiciously non-committal way.

Despite his joking tone, I stiffen. Can he steal abilities like Danchou? There's something fishy about this.

"I wish you had warned me so I could have been prepared."

"Hmm?" he sounds, a tad offended. "But I  _did_."

"No, you d-didn't." My shivers weaken my words.

"The message clearly stated 'wants to meet for further consultation'." He angrily motions his fingers as if he were mimicking typing a message.

Is he really this dense or is he hiding something?

"We thought you meant schedule a consultation, not literally right then. And your message didn't say not one thing about the Ghost-Transport ability."

"How  _else_ could we have met then? Apparently you're not serious about this job at all, wasting my precious time."

"I was with someone. Where is h-he?" Brrrrrr. I'm losing feeling in my armature and my mental commands to flex don't reach the doll's appendage. I cross my arms to solidify my stance against this guy and for warmth. "Are you going to nab him by turning him into a ghost?"

"I did  _not_ turn you into a ghost. And I don't need to nab him. He can sit put in the Tavern," he scoffs. "There's a reason I conjured you here alone."

"Why?"

He doesn't bother answering. He's definitely hiding something and I definitely don't want to be alone with him.

"If he's not here, I won't agree to any terms."

"Then I won't agree to the job." He tips his cap as if he's about to leave.

"My friend needs to be here." I don't budge. "He sent the message. We entered the tavern with"—I risk it and say—"With  _his_ license, not mine—"

He pauses in the midst of turning around and my words are cut by his hysterical cackle. He laughs so hard I think he'll die from running out of breath. "You expect me to buy that lie?"

"None of it's a lie."

 _"You're_  the lie," his baritone booms, his sheepish side gone. "I know you're not a Hunter. How dare you pretend! You barely know what a Hunter is. What we are!"

Even in the cold, sweat beads in my palms and shoulder blades. My phone weighs heavy in my pocket, all the PT numbers are in it but what could they do? Even if I could type a message to Danchou without this guy noticing, as powerful as he is, what could Chrollo realistically do?

"Is it a crime to lie about being a Hunter?"

"Not being a Hunter is one thing, having the audacity to lie is another. Pft! So haughty I don't even want to take the job."

If this guy really is the best, I need to mind my tongue and deescalate. "You're right. I'm not a Hunter. I didn't mean to lie and insult your profession."

"Did your friend by any chance tell you  _how_ to become a Hunter?"

"Pass the exam then the license—"

"Pffft! This is impossible! Your friend is also a liar. That may be how you get your license but that is  _not_ how you become a Hunter."

"Enlighten me then. How?"

"You can start by getting rid of that pitiful look on your face."

I can't see his eyes but I feel him boring into me.

"THAT one. You  _look_  exhausted and  _hunted."_

I don't care if he's the best or not. I'm ready to calll this whole thing a wash and start over with Shalnark. "Take me back to the Tavern. Or ghost me or whatever the hell you did."

 _"I didn't turn you into a ghost._  And you're not going anywhere."

"Why not?"

"I said I conjured you here for a reason. The job remember?"

Icy waves crashes against the shoreline far below the cliff. "At this point, it's better if I do the job myself," I say. "Take me back to the Tavern."

"Not until we're done with the consulation."

Is he serious? "Take me back  _now."_

 _"Pffft,"_ he flaps his lips dramatically and kicks his foot brusquely. "For all this trouble, just to turn your Phantom Troupe friend in for his Class A bounty. And you, turn you in as an illegal East Gortese refugee, collect the bounty and watch, with more change in my pocket, as you get shipped back to East Gorteau in cuffs."

It was all a trap.

My instincts kick into overdrive, searching for an exit—not that I'm not going to find one on a cliff, barring the long drop off the cliff itself. Cornered, frustrated and cold as hell (oh I understand that expression now) I absolutely shout at him.

"You call  _me_ the liar!" I exclaim louder than I expected, loud enough to hurt my vocal cords, louder than the crash of waves against the shoreline. His figure rattles as if the ground quaked beneath him, and I'm not sure if it's from my harsh accusation or merely the explosive-volume of my voice. "You had no intention of doing the job! You're not a Lost-Hunter! You would send a refugee to her death for money?! You're despicable!"

I claw at the hem of my glove. I'm halfway through peeling one off when I freeze.

Despite my manic desire to tear into this fraud, another frigid gale interrupts me. Innervation coos sweetly at my ear to lie down,  _nice_ and slow. I pool back to the chalky ground as a useless shivering heap, glove still half dangling. Time slows and my blood pumps slower in my veins, draining from my fingers and toes to protect my limbs and torso.

The startled Hunter composes himself with a sigh and steps forward. While he doesn't look tall or bulky in his loose clothes, he sits me up with strong gentleness. He peels his top layer and cocoons me in his overcoat. I'm ten times warmer and calmer as soon as he wraps me in it. As he unravels his navy scarf, I spy sparse stubble on his upper lip and expressive hazel eyes.

He notes my half-off glove and fits it back on properly. He sweeps stray hairs from my brows and cheeks, tucking them behind my ear before wrapping the scarf around me, tight as if he wanted to muffle my mouth shut. Only my eyes are exposed from the muffler and I inhale what I can best describe is a wilderness spice with manly musk.

At my level, he lifts up his cap to finally meet me face to face. Tanned skin that suggests he doesn't dwell in the tundra and a perfectly honed poker frown. He waits a moment, for me to completely stop shivering. Feeling returns to my fingers and toes

"Can you understand Japanese? Nod if you can."

I nod.

He sighs a visible vapory breath. "Let me be clear," he says, switching to Japanese. "No one is getting hauled in. I'm not a Bounty Hunter. Nor am I a Refugee Hunter. Despite what some at the association might tell you, I'm not  _that_  unethical or selfish. Scratch that, I am selfish, but not  _that_ selfish."

You know, at first, when he switched to Japanese, I thought his real personality would shine, after being bottle-necked and lost in translation when he spoke Gortese. Sometimes trying to express yourself in a foreign language is like trying to shove a square peg through a round hole. For a moment, I'm empathetic. A moment later, I'm not.

"When I said," he goes. "There's a reason I conjured you alone, it's because you're the true client even if you aren't a Hunter."

...Oh.

"I wasn't speaking Prussian. What did you think I meant?" he says, tone rebuking as if  _I_ had been the abrasive one. "Pft! You're already making this so difficult."

"Then why threaten me?"

"Because you insulted me. You thought I was a Bounty-Hunter! You expected me to act like a Bounty-Hunter so I did!"

I narrow my eyes into what I hope is a deadly glare. How is that my fault?! For someone who made sure to immediately address me in perfect Gortese, to then suddenly be so bad with words...unless...

"You riled me up on purpose," I say, against the scarf, but I know he heard by his rough "Hmm?"

"Are you really that bad with people or can you admit that it was all a dramatic ruse to play me like a fiddle?"

The brim of his cap almost touches my forehead so I witness how my words slowly stir him, like watching a pond that ripples when disturbed by a pebble.

It's brief but I catch a measure of subtle respect on his face before he  _shyly_  scratches the side of his turban, cap-feather waving.

"It's because you're not taking this seriously! You came to the Top of the World, without a coat! Pft! Why did I bother? You're impossible to work with."

Regardless, game or not, he's not much of a people person. Danchou is slick as oil and this guy fudges our introduction before he's even told me his name.

"It shows because you didn't rehire your old smuggler."

"What smuggler?"

"The one who hauled you out in the first place. Why haven't you rehired them? Or did your sour attitude burn that bridge to ash?"

Our brief interaction has been a rollercoaster, but I can't describe how much that insults me. " _No one_ hauled me out.  _I_ got myself out by crossing the DMZ, three miles littered with more landmines than shells on a beach. You should grasp what a tantamount task that is since you're the  _only_  Hunter with any experience with East Gorteau. Right?"

I lower the muffler so I can give him a serious poker face, pronounced with I'm-not-here-for-bullshit.

I repeat, " _Right_?"

He hoarsely clears his throat. With a changed tune and an audible misstep in his words, he says, "Well...erm, let's go. This cold is getting to me too. We could have been done with the consultation by now if you hadn't been so difficult to talk to—"

"Go where?" I ask when his back is already turned, frock billowing in the wind. He's not the type that waits for someone to follow, or cast a glance behind.

"I'm taking you to early spring."

Is that the name of a place, I wanna ask, but he's already striding into the forest as if he's determined to lose me. With a delayed start, my thawing legs finally chase after the strange hunter into the dense cover of redwood trees.


End file.
